Sapphir
by JackpotGirl
Summary: AU oOo Rachel Barbra Berry is Phantom B, the most feared and acclaimed hacker in the country and an enigma no less. When FBI Agent Blaine Anderson finds her, she has to help him on a case. But there might be more to it than she bargained for.
1. Prologue

**SAPPHIR**

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><p><em><strong>Genre: <strong>Romance/Relationship_

_**Pairing:** Rachel Berry & Blaine Anderson (Blainchel, Raine)_

_**Rating: **M – language, mild violence, sex in later chapters _

_**Summary: **Rachel Berry is an 18 year old senior at McKinley High. No one gives the animal-print-sweater-high-waist-skirt-clad Mathlete the time of day. Little do they know that she alone would be capable of wrecking the entire country by just the click of her mouse. _

_Rachel Barbra Berry is Phantom B, the most feared and acclaimed hacker in the country and an enigma no less._

_When 25-year old federal agent Blaine Anderson picks her out of her school's glee club she thinks she's finally screwed. But Anderson has no interest in arresting her._

_Quite the opposite. He needs her help. And he makes it very clear that - if she doesn't want the rest of her life spent behind bars - she should be willing to cooperate._

_Based on a prompt by: blainchelraineanderberry DOT tumblr DOT com _

_**Status:** Complete, 11 Chapters, 39.727 words  
><em>

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><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

Glee club was slow that day. The kids had been divided into groups to do some brainstorming of possible suitable numbers for Sectionals and time stretched out like a rubber band for senior Rachel Berry.

It wasn't like she had any place better to be, not that day, and usually Glee was fun, just the fact that they were budding heads over something that Rachel could have figured out in less than ten minutes using a simple Algorithm, made her impatient.

It was just a question of adjusting the right filters; search the web for fitting songs based on length, lyrics, era, number of singers and tempo and theme of the song, piece of cake – you would have a strong list of competitors for further evaluation with every song alone already a match. It would be that much smarter than to watch Mercedes Jones go through her iPod, suggesting every second R'n'B song she stumbled upon.

Rachel was watching her friends discuss with little interest, she would end up getting a solo anyway, she knew, because she always did. Naturally her brain went on to the next best activity as she played with the hem of her tweet skirt. Equations, rows of numbers and code running in front of her inner eye, swiftly tinkering the idea in her head.

Suddenly the chatter and talks in the room died down one voice at a time and initially Rachel welcomed it because more quiet meant more concentration for her – numbers and letters fell into place quicker and she halfway thought '_Eureka'_ before the seemingly unprompted silence eventually irked her.

She looked up to find Mercedes full lips parted as her friend was staring mouth agape at something on the other end of the choir room.

Rachel followed her stare to Mr. Schuester, her teacher, and his startlingly handsome guest. The unfamiliar man looked pretty collected and official, his dark blue suit fitted perfectly to his relatively small but defined frame, short but full black hair and thick eyebrows made him look masculine but there was still something very approachable about him, everything seemed to scream: _Trust me, believe me, I can protect you_.

It was almost cliché, he was young, possibly a rookie, no older than twenty-seven and she wondered if he was trying to be a hero of if they'd grabbed him from MIT or something before he even knew what was happening. She could bet that they chose him because he looked so much like someone you wanted to tell all your secrets and cling to, to hopefully be saved.

Still, for Rachel Berry his whole demeanor was everything but reassuring. She knew his type, knew just what had swept him into the halls of the generic, irrelevant Ohio High School that was William McKinley High. Her.

The girl's looks jumped from his observing eyes that hadn't caught her yet to the second door out near to her and back again. He canvased the whole room swiftly, hazel eyes lingering on every student with an uncanny calmness – he was in no hurry, he was sure that he would find what he was looking for and that alone prompted Rachel to get up from her seat and set herself into motion.

Slowly because there was no use in running anyway, it would only bring his attention on her. If she was lucky she'd be out of the door before anyone even noticed –

"Rachel", Mr. Schue called her through the room and she stood dead in her tracks, back turned to the others but she could feel their curious looks on her.

She bit her lip, barely keeping from whispering "Shit", thinking it repeatedly instead, and walked over to her teacher who seemed clueless as ever. The second man eyed her with an almost amused glimmer, still as content as before when she looked up at him and he smiled politely.

Like both of them didn't know exactly what was going on.

"Rachel", Mr. Schue started off again, totally oblivious to their silent exchange, "Agent Anderson here works for the FBI and he thinks you might know something about a very important local case-"

"-Classified Case", Agent Anderson spoke for the first time in Rachel's presence and she had to hold back a chuckle at the smooth and soothing tone of his voice. Maybe he was even trained in hostage negotiation, she thought – and this made her proud somehow. After all, if they sent her a trained hostage negotiator they must think her capable of many horrendous things.

Normally no one ever did, that was her saving grace. People had been snooping around many times before but nearly none of the uninspiredly disguised surveillance vans or "Undercover" agents had given Rachel Berry a second thought.

They'd looked at the skanks, the "anarchists" and rebels of the school – which was almost insulting because they would never be capable of the things Rachel was capable of, and how could they, their brains wrecked with weed and god knows what else they blasted their circuits with. The feds even clumsily followed Artie around the school once, probably just because he _looked_ like a nerd.

Rachel had always prided herself with outsmarting them. No one in school knew she could work a computer for anything else than operating her _myspace_ page and no one would have reason to suspect otherwise. She was the typical goodie-two-shoes, straight A's, Mathlete, debate team, glee club, chess club, mock United Nations etc. Her choice of wardrobe clearly helped as well.

She wore skirts and animal sweaters, dresses and cardigans, knee socks. For most people she looked like the perfect Lima looser, even if Santana, one of the two Cheerleaders in glee club, once hadn't been too far off suggesting that Rachel dressed more like she was catering to a very specific fetish.

It was a fetish in a way, albeit not in that sexual way.

Rachel Berry just got a kick out of her double life and everything she was in school, the good girl with the reindeer print stockings, was everything she really wasn't in her _real_ life. It seemed Agent Anderson wasn't truly convinced of that yet, though.

"Ms. Berry, may I have a word with you outside?", Agent Anderson addressed her personally now.

"Of course", she replied dutifully, side-eying her teacher to make sure he was still not picking up on their little scam.

Agent Anderson smiled his pacifying smile again and extended his arm, gesturing to the open door, leading her out to stand by the a line of lockers.

"So what can I do for the FBI?", Rachel asked, not wanting to lay her cards bare before he did.

"I think that's not the question here", Anderson said, studying her features. He wasn't that much taller but it still felt like he was towering over her.

"You mean the question is more like, what the FBI can do for _me_?", Rachel quipped, her voice dripping with sarcasm and forced her eyes away from his to calculate her escape route.

"Something like that", Anderson said, "It was a pain finding you, you know? You created a nice diversion with that disturbing signal, it kept us away from Lima for an almost embarrassing while"

"I have no idea what you're talking about", she stated coldly, she had a feeling that it was little use to play coy but she could still try.

"I think you do, Rachel", he said calmly, "Or should I call you _NineEpo_? Or _Elphalpha_? Or your latest Alias _Phantom B_?"

Rachel bit her lip, _shit_. He knew. He even connected her to two old Aliases, that was bad. She'd been sloppy. For a moment her mind jumped ahead – to what she would do about her life, to where she would disappear, what her fathers would say if she really faked her death like she'd vaguely planned for the scenario that was just unfolding around her.

Her eyes jumped to and from his frame, past his broad shoulders into the hall. She could make it to the gym and then to her car – if it was only him, which she wasn't sure of. He seemed very fit and agile but she was certain that she could outrun him, she knew this school which gave her a significant field advantage. If he had a partner though, someone could be waiting for her. She'd probably go with the basement route, that had helped her get away the last few times suspicious looking men had roamed the school grounds.

"Don't even think about it", Anderson said and immediately commanded her attention back to him, "You're not getting away this time, I got people lining the perimeters, a team in the basement and I even put a detail on the roof. So think hard about your next move, Ms. Berry"

Rachel took a deep breath, trying to assert if he was bluffing but he seemed too certain, too content to not be sure that he _had_ her.

"Are you gonna arrest me?", she asked bluntly, deciding to attempt a forward escape.

"Not if you cooperate", he said quieter as a couple of students passed them, "but know that we have enough on you to lock you away for a long time if you don't"

"Cooperate?", she asked, feeling her face harden.

"We need your help"

She let out a harsh scoff and shook her head lightly, "Fuck you"

"Language, Berry", he said, still annoyingly calm with that amused and infuriating little smirk making a reappearance on his even features, "Let me be clear here, you have two choices; One: Help us and walk out of here with dignity or Two: Don't and leave in handcuffs"

"What do you want?"

"Your...professional assistance on a case that requires your abilities"

"And your little Bureau doesn't have resources for that? You really need a school girl to help with business? That's pathetic", she was snapping now, not a fan of having her back against the wall.

Why'd she been so careless? They were never supposed to find her and now she was fucked.

"I'm not gonna say it again", he warned, "Make a decision and make it fast"

"Fine", she hissed through gritted teeth.

Agent Anderson smiled again and held her gaze for a second before taking out his phone, tapping a few keys and then put his hand lightly on her back, nudging her toward the exit, "Walk with me"

"I can't believe it", she murmured to herself, "What about Glee club?"

"You're formerly excused", he reassured with a little chuckle. She already hated this guy, he was too sure of himself.

"Tell me, have you ever heard of _Sapphir_?", he asked.

"Sounds like a stripper name", she said with little humor.

"Hardly", Anderson answered, "It's an organization and a very dangerous one at that..but you're right, they appear harmless at first. A lot like you, actually"

He led her out the building, walking her to a slick black car and held the door open for her. She deliberated making a last attempt at running but it was no use. There were three SUVs lining the street and he was right, if he found her, knew her name and Aliases, he had enough on her to give her 25 to life. She was screwed and well on her way on becoming a government pawn.

_Worst. Day. Ever_, she thought as she sank into the dark leather seats. How was she gonna get out of this?

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><p><strong>Please review if you read this, it will help me to decide in which capacity - if at all - to continue this.<strong>


	2. Chapter One

_**Author's Note: **Thank you for all the reviews and alerts, keep them coming. I decided to make the chapters a little shorter for this one – which will enable me to update more frequently. So the chapters will be 2000-3000 words each, if that's alright for you._

_Please share your thoughts with me, they are my greatest muse!_

_And thanks to Rach for beta'ing this for me, she's my hero._

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><p><strong>Chapter One<strong>

The car slowly started driving past McKinley High and Rachel tried to make out where they were headed but the partition window in front of the driver's seat was tinted. She was stuck on the backseat with an FBI agent, blind and deaf to what was going on and at an utter loss of what they were planning to have her do.  
>"Where are we going?", she demanded when Anderson wouldn't start talking on his own. She started to feel caged and nervous, claustrophobic even.<p>

"Hillside Motel", he replied after deliberating for a second. As if he wasn't sure whether or not to entrust her with this information.  
>"Classy", she huffed, "You guys are pretty cheap for a federal agency"<br>"Sorry, next time I'll book you into the Savoy, princess", he sighed, looking out of the window.  
>"Sarcasm, wow", Rachel snapped back, "I didn't think you guys were allowed that"<br>He squinted his eyes and rubbed his temples with his fingertips, making her unsure if he was mocking impatience or if he was really tired or having a headache. Not that she cared.  
>If it came down to her, he could as well tumble out of the car and break all his limbs.<p>

"How did you find me anyway?", Rachel asked when he wouldn't say anything, it unnerved her not to be in control of the situation, not to be in charge and then he wasn't helping matters by letting her babble like that. It wasn't fair, she deserved some answers. And she shouldn't be feeling so stupid.  
>She wasn't stupid, for crying out loud, she could wreck the entire country with a click of her mouse if she wanted to, why did she feel so intimidated and … young? She felt green in the worst way possible and she didn't know if that was because she got caught or because she got caught by someone like Agent Anderson.<p>

"You were the only person we couldn't find", he informed her evenly, "All houses around you buzzed with irregularly high server activity and yours was precisely the national average and while that threw some of my colleagues off time and time before, I thought it was too convenient..I'd just love to hear how you transferred your activity to the other servers"  
>"Too bad I'm not gonna tell you"<br>"Too bad"

"So what do you want from me?"  
>"As I said, your assistance on a classified case concerning the criminal organization <em>Sapphir<em>, you'll get your details when we debrief at the hotel"  
>"And how does this work? Do you lock me away somewhere at Quantico to hack into their business?"<br>"No..you'll stay here in Lima, it's the perfect cover, you're gonna familiarize yourself with their code and infiltrate their servers and communications..collect intel. We have some of our own people on it but they're not quite as ruthless as you"  
>"I'm not ruthless"<br>"You crashed the homepage of Warner Music for three solid days. They lost millions over you"  
>"Well they never sent me an answer about my demo tape. I had all the right..and I was sixteen, I didn't think"<br>Anderson laughed beside her, shooting her a look as if he was waiting for her to ask more questions and despite the fact that she didn't like how he called the shots, she still had more than enough she wanted answered.

"So, let's say I have intel on them, big stuff, bank account traffic, logistics and communication and all that jazz…am I done then?"  
>"If you have collected enough intel so that we can start an operation, you're coming with us to the field, you'll be our eyes and ears with the tech"<br>"You'll put me in one of your Captain Obvious vans? But I'm not trained, you can't take me with you, can't be legal"  
>"That's why I'm your handler, I give you a basic training and ensure your safety at all times"<br>"Well that's reassuring", she scoffed, rolling her eyes.  
>"I wouldn't be so skeptical about the abilities of the guy who found out your name, school and address, <em>Phantom<em>"  
>"And if I've been with you in the field and you manage not to get me killed..am I off the hook then?", she ignored his last remark skillfully.<p>

"If we find enough on _Sapphir_ to take them down, you are free to go, all charges dropped – but of course we'll still be monitoring your activities, just to make sure you're not falling into old habits"  
>"Are you just saying this to get me working with you or is it legit?", Rachel wasn't convinced yet, he held all the cards and she could not tell if he was bluffing.<br>"That's the deal we're making you", he promised with that soothing voice of his and looked her deep in the eyes. He reminded her of that snake in the Jungle Book Movie, Kaa, the one with the hypnotizing eyes and the "Trust in me" song.

"Somehow I don't think you have the authority to guarantee me that"  
>"How come?", he asked curiously, leaning back in his seat as the car made a sharp left.<br>"Because you look like a rookie, how old are you anyway? Twenty-one?"  
>"I'm twenty-five if you must know, and trust me, I'm not a rookie"<br>"Whatever you say", she muttered and then sat herself up, turning her body towards him, locking eyes intendedly, "But if I do all this stuff for you, you better keep your promise, or I will make your life a living hell"  
>"I'm a man of my word, you're just gonna have to trust me...plus you're not really in the place to be threatening me"<br>The car stopped and Anderson gave her a last smirky look and got out, walking around the back and then opened the door for her again. At least he had decent manners. Not that this made up for his infuriating attitude of grandeur but it was a way of courtesy she'd been taught to respect.

The Hillside Motel at the rim of the city was just as shabby as it sounded, Rachel wrinkled her nose and followed Agent Anderson up the stairs to the second floor, into the second to last room.  
>"Rachel Berry", he said, leading her into the room, gesturing to another guy on a computer, "This is <em>our<em> computer guy, Agent Kevin Marshal"  
>The man was taller than Anderson and Rachel and got up more clumsily than gracefully, scratching the back of his head before bringing it out to shake hers.<p>

"Call me Kevin, um, Hi. I didn't want to believe it at first..that you're really _the_ Phantom", Kevin said with undisguised admiration, "I mean, you're all kinds of famous. The _Warner_ thing alone...it's really an honour to meet you"  
>"Easy with the praise, Marshal, she's not exactly done good with her...talents yet, has she?", Anderson said and sat down on one of the double beds, taking up a file from the side table, "Can you come here for a second, Rachel?"<br>She could feel Kevin's eyes on her when she sat with Anderson and glanced over the confidential file. It was kind of flattering that Marshal at least appreciated her work but Anderson talking about her like that - like she wasn't even in the room - annoyed her.

Everything he did, she thought, pretty much annoyed her at this point. Which was sort of new. No one really ever annoyed her, she was good at tuning people out, wandering off to better things to spend brain capacity on. But he was like a leech she couldn't shake off, she knew him for maybe an hour at this point but she already took offense from every uneven breath and side-glance he made in her proximity. She tried to ignore this, sitting next to him. She focused her attention to the photos and tables, documents and lists he presented her with and ignored his sleeve brushing against her arm, ignored the soft and patient ring to his voice, just concentrating on the information he fed her. It got easier and easier to become unaffected. Or so she told herself.

For the next half hour he went over the file, the details of the mission, the head operators of Sapphir, what the organization had been connected with (human trafficking, drugs and prostitution but most of all techno-crimes, as he called them, they were stealing and selling information from hacker attacks against the government, hacking banks to wire money into their own accounts, etc)…they were good and swift and smart. And under the radar – because under any normal circumstances Rachel would have heard of them before.  
>"This man is important", Agent Anderson said once he produced a picture of a mildly obese, bearded fellow, well in his fifties, "This is Bruno Dennings, head of operations. He's the second in line of command"<br>"Who's the first?", she asked out of curiosity.  
>"No one knows", he replied immediately, "all we have is a code name, in communications, they call him Pyra"<p>

After roughly another hour that Kevin explained the basic _Sapphir_ communications code they'd been able to decipher, Rachel was back in the black limo and Agent Anderson told her to keep up the cover of assisting in a local case, something classified so she couldn't talk about it.

He even walked her to her doorsteps to talk to her fathers about it, glancing into the house on his tiptoes, making Rachel wonder why he seemed so eager to see how she lived. But then she figured he must've just been trying to get the right picture of her. The more he knew about her after all, the more leverage he had.

Her Dads bought his little story in a heartbeat – neither of them aware that Rachel's "hobby room" in the cellar wasn't just a studio to record her songs but really a rather impressive hacker's base that alone had the power to shut down all of Lima and big parts of Ohio along with it.  
>Agent Anderson said goodbye politely and nodded to her. He would go back to Washington and she had a task at hand. Her backpack held all the details he'd shared with her and as soon as he left, she excused herself to start working on unraveling <em>Sapphir<em>.

Sure she wasn't the biggest fan of working for the government but this organization intrigued her, they were better than her and that meant a challenge – hacking into their system unnoticed, stealing their intel and beating them – that would be about the neatest thing she would ever accomplish. It felt just like when they went out to competitions with _Glee_ club, she was pumped, ready and excited and felt all her senses razor sharp, just focused on one thing; winning. Like a hound dog. Or a trace missile. Rachel, _the Phantom_ _B._ Berry had smelled blood and she wanted all of it.

The weeks rolled over her though and fruitlessly so, she always only got tidbits out, trying to put puzzle pieces together in class or in bed. She still kept up her straight A average but her heart wasn't in it.

She even had to cut back on _Glee_ a little bit, surrendering two of four solos to her friends Quinn Fabray and Tina Cohen-Chang just so she could spend more time trying to figure out _Sapphir_.  
>It was frustrating, whenever she got an inch, the system redirected her and threw her out and she'd lost info she'd already thought secured.<p>

Agent Anderson checked in with her from time to time but he wasn't half as upset with the lack of progress as she was. One night she called him just to yell at him and to accuse him of messing with her – that the whole thing was just to torture her, that he just wanted to see her squirm before tossing her into jail but he'd just chuckled and promised her that she was doing good and helping them out a lot.

Then finally, one night she stumbled upon something and nearly spilled her milk and cookies over the keys.

This was massive. She felt the common flutter of achievement well up in her stomach and could barely refrain from yelling out in victory. A glance at her watch kept her quiet for her parents sake. But she still squealed inwardly; she'd done it. _Booya_.

Rachel had managed to produce a date and a time, a location and a vague idea of what would be going on there and it was _good intel_. The kind of stuff Anderson had talked about – the mission she could be involved with to help her off the hook.

Just the thought of presenting him with her find made her ears tickle with smug pride. She'd prove him that he hadn't underestimated her alright.  
>She didn't hesitate to call his number right away, by now she knew it by heart. She huffed impatiently when he didn't answer until the sixth ring.<p>

"Why did this take so long?", she scolded after a hoarser version of his regular voice greeted her in a huff.  
>"It's 3 am, Rachel", he mumbled tiredly.<br>"Doesn't matter, I found something", she declared, adding a dramatic pause to highten the certain anticipation, "An information exchange, at a ball in New York City, a month from now, as far as I can tell the whole league of higher operatives is going, even Pyra"

She could hear Anderson rummaging around on the other line, suddenly wide awake, "Can you send this all over to me?"  
>"Already did, with a copy to Kevin", she informed him, cheeks flushing, beaming at his approval. Which wasn't exactly how she wanted to feel. She didn't want to feel like she needed to impress him, he was just another federal idiot. He meant nothing to her. But damn she had done it. And he'd be an idiot not to be proud of her.<p>

"Rachel, when does your fall holiday start?"  
>"A week from now, why?"<br>"Because you're gonna spend them here in Quantico"  
>"Why?", she asked, incredulous. The ball was in New York and not for a month, what was she supposed to do in Washington?<br>"You're getting spy training"


	3. Chapter Two

_**Author's Note: **Thank you for sticking with me, even if the story disappeared for a short while last week. I hope it's stays up now for your reading pleasure (which I hope you're having)._

_Originally I'd planned to make the training one chapter but this is already longer than I'd planned and only half of it, so I decided to split the spy training into two chapters._

_Please, please tell me what you think, especially details you liked, that always helps a lot!_

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><p><strong>Chapter Two<strong>

Rachel touched down in Washington DC roughly an hour after getting on the plane in Toledo, Ohio. Her dads had drove her the one and a half hours to the bigger city and sent her on her merry way.

Leroy's voice still rung in her ears, it rose above the engine noise the plane made, being steered to the gate.

"Blow them all away, baby girl", her Papa had said.

"Like the last time you were here in Toledo with you", her Dad, Hiram, chimed in, "Do you remember that? The Ohio State Singing Competition for toddlers? You won first prize"

"Yes, I remember, Daddy", Rachel said and blushed a little.

With her dads, she was still the little innocent girl. Sometimes she felt bad for lying to them, for hiding so much of what she really was in plain sight. They didn't deserve that, they didn't deserve a daughter who lashed out into illegality for things they held no blame for. They weren't the ones that took her mother away from her, they'd tried – for all their lives – to make her happy. It wasn't their fault that they couldn't succeed. So she kept up appearances and acted happy and content, for their sakes more than for hers. She did not want them to worry or blame themselves for her state of mind.

And back in Toledo, they had been so proud and happy for her. For her music camp scholarship. That was her cover story for the two weeks spent in Quantico. They'd sent a really official looking letter that Rachel had made an impression at the last Regionals performance with her _Glee_ club and they wanted to reward her with a spot in one of the leading musical programs for youngsters in the country. A part of her wished that it wasn't just a cover. At least she knew what she was doing on a stage, dancing and singing, it was her element, almost as much as numbers and code were.

She had no idea what Anderson's spy training entailed and she didn't like it.

Her dads had watched her go into customs and waved until she was out of sight. Right now she collected her things to get off the plane, pushing past scattered tourists through the narrow aisles between rows of seats.

Once she was out of the vehicle, she quickly found her suitcase from the luggage band and looked for the exit, finding it quickly and leaving for the commotion of arrivals.

For a moment she was nervous, because she couldn't see any sign that someone was waiting for her, no sign with her name on it, no smirking suit waiting for her but then she spotted him. He stood at the far end of the arrival gate dressed in jeans and a purple shirt, the first three buttons undone.

She had to double-check if it was really him, looking so different from the way she'd known him. His hair was still short but they'd grown in a way that she could see how curly it'd be if he'd let it roam free. He'd probably get a righteous afro and that thought made her smile.

He saw her just when she did and smiled back, raising his hand to wave her over. She wasn't sure because she was still some feet away but she was pretty sure he was sporting a five o'clock shadow. He looked dangerously handsome, even more so than the first time she saw him and even more approachable because he wasn't sporting a two piece Italian suit but regular people's clothes.

Rachel Berry felt a familiar twitch below her belt which made walking a little uncomfortable for a second and scolded herself because she didn't want to find him sexy, she refused.

Within the last months he'd stopped being super annoying but that might only be because she'd only spoken to him on the phone and she wasn't willing to give in to his charm, that was just what he wanted, just what they'd wanted him to do...to charm people. But not her. Not Rachel Berry.

That was why her smile turned lopsided as she walked up to him, a little awkwardly too because she didn't know how to greet him. She wouldn't hug him but a handshake seemed silly as well. She ended up giving him a weird head wobble and said, "Hi"

"Ms. Berry, it's good to see you", he still smiled politely and relieved her of her luggage, carrying the trolley behind him as he walked her through the arrivals hall.

"How was your flight?", he asked her, clearly attempting small talk.

"Short", she answered, not in the right mood to be snippy, "The ride to Toledo took longer than the flight"

"Did your fathers take you to the airport?"

"Uh-huh and they wouldn't stop giving me advice for the music camp", she raised her eyebrows and he laughed lightly.

"Well, at least they bought it", he mused, "So you're probably really good if they weren't even surprised"

"I'm brilliant", she said with no hint of sarcasm.

"I actually have no trouble believing that", he glanced down at her and then did something really weird. He looked away first, then up, then bit his lip and shook his head ever so slightly, all within seconds but she caught it none the less.

Peculiar, she thought.

He had his own car parked on one of the decks and let her pick the channel on a radio.

"So why aren't you wearing your fancy suit?", she asked when they'd been driving for a while.

"I didn't want to draw attention", he shrugged, "It would've looked weird if I'd picked you up in a suit, this way it looked like I was your brother or something, no questions asked"

"Does _Sapphir_ know about our operation? Do they know about me?", she wondered, prompted by his wish not to raise flags around her.

"No", he promised, "I mean, they know that the FBI and CIA are on their tails but they know nothing about you"

He looked at her intently then, pursing his lips, almost like he wanted to say something else but then he refrained and changed the subject instead.

"I'm taking you to your room now, it's a dorm at the academy, one room, small kitchen and a bath with a shower, you're provided groceries and vouchers to eat at the Campus restaurants and you have Wi-Fi and TV", and then he added with a smirk, "Your Internet connection is of course monitored and you're not gonna be working on _Sapphir_ from your dorm, you'll be at the Tech devision and supervised for that"

"I didn't need supervision the last couple of months", she protested, not a fan of the prospect of a guard dog or babysitter, "And I still delivered"

"True", he agreed, "But they're also gonna teach how to not leave traces anymore. Plus, even if you had no one looking over your shoulder back home doesn't mean we didn't check up on you"

"You practically _own_ me, why do you people still don't trust me?"

"Do you trust us?", he retorted, shutting her up, "That's what I thought"

Quantico was past the outskirts of the city and the Academy was sort of embedded in the woods. The leaves had already started turning colors, making it all the more exciting to drive through the sea of reds and yellows, browns and purples.

"It's pretty here", she stated as they walked from a parking lot to a beige building, "Prettier than our Community College...but to be fair, that's not really a challenge"

Agent Anderson remained silent for their way to her dorm on the third floor, the whole building seemed deserted.

"The students are on vacation, most of them went home", he informed her.

"Nice", she muttered, "It's like ghost city in here"

"I'm living at the end of the corridor for the time being", he said, "So if you get scared just knock on my door"

"Ha!", she huffed loudly, "I don't get _scared_"

"Good to know", he smiled and stopped in the middle of the corridor, fumbling with a key on a door.

He waited for her to catch up with him and let her in, handing her the key after he pushed her suitcase over the threshold.

"The fridge is full, you can get settled in now", he said, "If you want to walk the perimeter you have to tell me first and...wait a second -"

He brushed past her, crossing her in the doorway and got something small from the desk in her room, bringing it back to her.

Gently, he took her wrist into his hands and she noticed how his fingertips were slightly calloused. With a snapping sound he closed a little watch-like band around her skin and looked back down at her.

"This is a tracker so that we always know where you are and you don't get lost..it'll come off in two weeks when you leave"

"Why do I feel this is your version of electronic tags?", she asked him, retreating into the room slowly.

"It's not", he reassured her, "It's just to keep you safe"

They stood there in silence for a while and just before it got awkward, he spoke again, "I wouldn't go to bed late, we'll start early tomorrow morning...and if you need anything, I'm just down the hall"

As promised, Agent Anderson knocked at her door at 6 am the next morning and gave her a short tour of the campus, where she'd be training with him for the most time and then they drove over to the main building where he introduced her to Grace Fielding, Quantico based Tech-Wiz who would be working with Rachel every day for two to four hours.

Rachel thought she would start on hands-on combat immediately but Anderson deflated those hopes fairly quickly.

At first he sat her down in a sort of classroom and had her do tons of paper work. She was eighteen so she was legal to sign all the contracts necessary. She'd already signed one that swore her to complete secrecy back at the Hillside Motel when they first met but now there were more forms to fill out, that she wouldn't steal data, that she wouldn't run away from her handler and that she would always listen to him.

"I will always obey orders given to me by superior Agents and my handler Agent Blaine Anderson", she read aloud, ballpoint pen in hand, "Blaine, huh? That's a nice, innocent, non-threatening name"

"Works wonders in hostage negotiation", he shrugged, patiently waiting for her to read through every last paragraph.

"So you _did_ have training in that", Rachel said triumphantly, "I knew it"

"How come?", he asked her to elaborate, he did that a lot. She wondered if it was just his way of trying to build a relationship or if it was genuine interest.

"Because of your voice", she answered, "it's all smooth and soothing"

"Thank you?", he joked, implying that he wasn't sure if she was being earnestly nice to him for a change. She smiled just at his acknowledgement of her bickering. So he actually did care, at least a little bit.

"I have a question", she said when she handed him her signed papers, "How did you get so important when you're only 25?"

"I started early", he answered, "A little like you, I got recruited out of school"

"For what?"

"That's kinda classified"

"Lame", she scoffed but he was quickly back on track with her lessons.

At first he made her run through all kinds of lingo – safe words, bureau code and abbreviations, forms and channels of communications, how to address higher ups, how to ask for back up, how to describe a scenery, how to drop universal hints in tricky situations where you can't really talk.

This, plus even more thorough studies of _Sapphir_ operators (name, age, bio and rank), took up the first couple of days and when Rachel went back to her dorm at night, her brain was too fried to do anything more than send Tina an e-mail and calling her Dads, telling them all the same made-up stores about music camp.

She slept like a stone, dreaming vividly of _Sapphir_ people, lists of names and numbers, computer screens and, more often than not, Blaine.

She reasoned that this was because she saw him every day for at least five hours, not because it had any other significance.

Okay, she had to admit that she didn't exactly hate him all the way anymore. And she'd started calling him Blaine which made him feel even more like a friend than a foe to her.

At first she'd done it just to annoy him, because she noticed him cringing when she initially, playfully, called him by his first name.

He'd given her a funny look and then shook himself again in that weird way..like he was physically trying to shake off a thought. He did that on more occasions, mostly when they were alone and she said the one or another inappropriate thing. She liked that because these were the times that his suave act faded and revealed more of an actual person.

When he faltered in some way he became real, not that polished, perfect, flawless, shiny example of a man he seemed to be the rest of the time.

These were the times she didn't feel so damn stupid next to him, the times that she could show him that they were really equals, even if he didn't like that fact much.

One night near the end of her first week in Quantico, Blaine took her out to a little diner in town and they sat and for the first time talked privately. Or as private as Blaine would have the conversation get.

He asked her a lot about Lima, about her friends and Glee club and she let herself get carried away, answering more than asking questions in return. He stayed relatively mum, sometimes dodging questions, sometimes steering the conversation back to her without her even noticing.

She guessed that came with his job but it was a little frustrating, not getting anything solid out of him.

"Okay, but you can at least tell me what your favorite song is", she scoffed after another 'classified'-excuse coming from the other side of the booth, "Or movie, your favorite movie, that can't be top secret"

"A little less conversation", Blaine smiled.

"I thought you _wanted_ to talk, _you_ asked me to talk over dinner", she said, startled by his sudden change in manners, telling her to shut up like that, "Rude"

"No", he laughed at her now, "No, I mean the song. By Elvis. That's my favorite song right now. It changes a lot though"

"Oh", she muttered sheepishly. That hadn't been embarrassing at all.

"What's yours?", he asked and gladly didn't pry on her lack of 70's pop culture knowledge.

"My Man from _Funny Girl_", she answered and earned herself a puzzled look, "The Broadway musical, turned-into-movie with Barbra Streisand?..Oh come on, you haven't seen it?"

"No, sorry, I haven't"

"Well, then if your precious agency ever gives you a day off you know what to do, or we'll just ditch tomorrow and I'll show it to you. It's also my favorite film by the way"

"What's the song about?", Blaine asked her over his waffles. (He'd ordered waffles!)

"Oh, um..it's about this girl who really loves this guy, even though he will never know how much and it's really quite sad because she completely loses herself in love for this guy and while I don't ever hope to be this dependent on somebody I do think it bares a certain kind of beauty. Tragic beauty but beauty no less. To love like that. With all your heart, unconditionally and desperately..", she stopped herself dead halfway into babbling and getting ridiculous, "you know, um, that kind of thing. So, what's your favorite movie anyway?"

"You don't want to know", he said, staring down at his desert, "Trust me"

"No, come on", she insisted, "I told you mine, you tell me yours, that's how it goes"

"It takes two to tango, huh?"

"Don't stall me, Anderson", she ordered with mocked strictness, "Spill it"

"Okay, fine", he gave in, "It's _Jumanji_"

"The one with the board game?", she nearly coughed up her chocolate milk.

"Yes", he said, raising both his hands in a surrendering gesture, "I said it, I'm a grown man and I love a kids movie about a live action board game"

Rachel laughed and was genuinely happy when he joined in. Their conversation went on over a third refill of her chocolate milk and his apple juice – he wouldn't drink when she was there, even when he was technically after hours. Something about needing his full senses to be able to protect her at all times.

Intel-on-Blaine-wise, she managed to find out that he'd went to school in Seattle and that his family still lived there but he hadn't seen them in a while. Also that he hadn't been on a proper vacation in years and she actually had a really great and interesting time prying that all out of him.

His company was kind of thrilling because he was actually interesting. He'd lived, he'd seen things, he was smart and witted. Not like the guys she knew from high school, immature jocks or guys like her ex-boyfriend Finn Hudson, who's imagination didn't reach past the football field.

Blaine Anderson was more than that and she was glad to have met him. Not for him so much, no, definitely and not _at all_ because of him as a person, just..him as an idea, as a reassurance that there were men out there in the world that were different. More interesting, more thoughtful, better in general than the men she knew back in Lima.

When she finished her drink, he asked her if she wanted one more or if she was ready to go. She let out a yawn and even if she'd said she wanted to stay, his protective instincts kicked in and he called it a night, looking out for the waitress, gesturing her that they wanted to pay.

Rachel produced her wallet from her purse, a hot pink eccentric number and reached for a ten dollar bill when he turned back around.

"Don't be silly, Rachel", Blaine protested, "I got it, it's the least the bureau can do"

"You're still trying to charm me, huh?", she was blatantly flirting and enjoyed how it immediately made him squirm.

"I, uh, no, I'm just...", he stuttered, "I'm trying to be nice..you did really good today, I'm trying to validate that"

Rachel smiled at his effort to regain his cool and watched him pay the bill before her eyes fell down on the picture in her wallet as they always did once she'd opened it.

She ran her thumb over it gingerly and closed her eyes for a second. _Mom_.

"Is that your birth mother?", Blaine asked and her head snapped up, startled that he'd apparently watched her private moment and annoyed that he put the puzzle together so quickly.

But then again, Rachel was a spitting image of her Mom, everyone could see the resemblance.

She nodded after a while, looking back down at the photo and then thought of something.

"You were never surprised about my Dads", she said, just now finding it peculiar. Normally people were curious or even appalled by her somewhat unusual set of parents.

"It was in your file; Rachel Berry, adoptive daughter of Hiram and Leroy Berry", Blaine spoke evenly.

"Well one of them is my father", Rachel told him, "They took a very..unorthodox method of surrogation, it's a long story but the bottom line is that I don't know which one of them is my biological Dad. It doesn't matter though, they're both my parents..."

"And your mother?", he asked curiously. Rachel had to swallow, she usually didn't talk about this.

"She helped raise me", she almost whispered, "She always used to sing with me. But she died when I was nine years old. Drunk driver, ran her car against a tree and there was a...a big explosion. There wasn't even anything left to bury"

She heard how bitter she sounded and thought once again that she hadn't built up enough resistance yet. She needed to have a thicker skin, needed to be less attached. What happened to her Mom sucked but it was almost ten years ago and she needed to rise above it eventually.

But then again she knew that everything she was, she was because of what happened that winter night nine and a half years ago.

"I just miss her", she hoped to close, "Every day"

"I'm sorry", Blaine said, "I had no idea"

"It's fine", she smiled weakly, "I just..I look at this picture and I see how happy she was and..it's just unfair...Her name was Shelby"

"I'm sure she loved you very much", Blaine said and even though it was just a phrase it hit closer to her heart than she had thought it would, prompting her to change the subject as she felt tears threaten at the corners of her eyes.

"She did", she said curtly, "But I think it's time to go, if tomorrow will be as early as the last couple of days I better get to bed"

* * *

><p><em><strong>Next chapter will be Blaine's POV. Please review if you're reading and actually enjoying it, thank you! <strong>_


	4. Chapter Three

_**Author's Note: **As you've seen I'm kinda struggling to keep my promise about the short chapters. I hope you can forgive me._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Three<strong>

Agent Blaine Anderson woke up bright and early. Since he'd started working for the FBI he'd learned that he was quite the early riser. He mused how this knowledge would've come in handy back when he was in school but then again, maybe he'd just changed since then because he couldn't remember ever being as quickly on his feet in the AM as he was these days.

He looked at his reflection while he shaved, taking his time to get all his rioting hairs off. He had to, though. He was one of those guys that could grow a full beard in about two weeks so he couldn't get sloppy, not in his line of work.

His job was to blend in and spectacular beard fashion would maybe take less grooming but certainly wouldn't help that.

He wore his track suit, like he had the three preceding days. Early on Monday, he'd started taking Rachel down the trail, building her stamina with running and cardio at the gym. She had protested fervently but he told her that she'd only get to train hand combat with him if she was in the proper shape to withstand the physical demands.

The prospect of throwing a couple of punches at him seemed to have worked wonders because she'd picked up the pace and manned up to the challenge in the blink of an eye.

Really, she was pretty tough. Both physically and emotionally. She could perfectly keep up with his pace on the track and was almost as guarded as he himself was off the court.

It was nothing out of the ordinary though, for a girl that been through what she had been through and taking into account which kind of shadowy life she had lived since her early teens, it made sense.

Still, underneath all that, she was a good person, he could tell when she did open up to him, which had happened more frequently lately.

Blaine knew that this was a good thing, both because he thought it would help her to have someone to confide in and because it was his explicit orders to foster a connection, a friendly relationship with her but he couldn't help but resent it a little bit.

Because really, he wasn't one she could trust. He wanted to be in an odd way, more than he'd ever wanted to be for people he had worked with, as he had to admit, but his orders and his position forbid him. There were too many things she didn't and couldn't know yet. Too many things he wasn't at liberty to tell her.

That was why it always stung him a little bit to see her less and less appalled by him, less and less antagonizing. Not to speak of her recent habit of trying to flirt with him. Still that was disconcerting for a whole other set of reasons he tried to shove from his mind. He shouldn't even be thinking into that direction. He shouldn't even be _thinking_ of thinking these things that made it hard to hold her stare when she smiled at him or brushed his skin "accidentally".

When she opened the door for him that morning, the pang came as expected but still harder than he was prepared for because she was blazing, grinning from ear to ear as she told him to hold on before running back in to grab her canvas bag and water bottle.

"Why so chipper?", he asked her when he found his voice again.

"Because I get to punch you in the groin today", she smirked, joining him on the way out of the dorms.

"So you haven't forgotten", he chuckled despite himself.

"Nope", she said, "One more lap around the perimeters and I get to smack you"

She was eager and at certain points she even managed to outrun him. On the way to the gym, he let her beat him to the doors because he knew she'd get a kick out of it and he played up his exhaustion when he caught up with her inside.

"You're ready to kick some ass?", he asked her as she bent over the drinking fountain, arching into the movement, probably knowing just how it shaped her fit body in a way that had him forcing his eyes to the ceiling.

"I don't know about 'some' but I'm definitely ready to kick yours"

She got back up and turned around to walk ahead but not without throwing him a look over her shoulder that a girl her age really shouldn't be capable of.

_Damn that girl_, he thought in a heartbeat before closing his eyes for a second, regaining composure and vowing to think of Robin Williams whenever he would have to touch her during their combat training. And he would have to touch her a lot.

He had booked a room in the gym just for them and Rachel was stretching in a corner while he threw his training jacket on a wooden bench lining the far wall before starting to put blue mats on the floor.

Blaine kept his eyes focused on his surroundings, careful not to glance into her general direction.

It was enough to imagine her bowing over in those tight elastic pants and the hot pink training top she'd decided to wear that day – the one that cut off just above her ribcage – he didn't have to see it.

_Get a grip, Anderson_, he scolded himself.

"Are you warm now?", he asked into the room, face still turned to the mats.

"More like hot", she quipped and he was glad to be facing away from her so she couldn't see him biting his lips.

She drew sick pleasure from winding him up like that and it was time he started to build a resistance.

Oddly, this was the thought that finally spurred him on to turn around and take her in.

Her hair was tousled and messy, in a high ponytail, her olive skin glistened with sweat and her visible skin was tight over her defined shape. Her clothes hugged her ever so flatteringly and he doubted that even the most flaming homosexual wouldn't have at least appreciated the aesthetic of the sight she gave. Every straight guy would probably be spinning out just like him. But he refused to be tempted, stubbornly so.

He'd put her down on these mats today, repeatedly and he would not think more of it. He would not be seeing flickering images of her, exposed, in front of his inner eye, would think of no innuendos, would not listen closely for her breathing and panting and he definitely wouldn't let his eyes wander down to her chest when she would catch her breath. _He would not be tempted_.

She held his gaze and stepped up to him, at four steps distance, mirroring his posture and resolve.

"We will start with the basics today", he explained, "How to fall correctly, how to avoid punches and if we get through that okay we can start on some defense moves"

She nodded and he was relieved to see her visibly dropping her sexy act, full in work mode now, concentrated as she always was when something intrigued her.

First, he let her drop to the ground by herself and she already did pretty good, he only had to make minor adjustments of arm placement and center of gravity before he could get closer.

"I will try and tackle you now", he said, "And I want you to jump away from me, fall the way we practiced and get back on your feet before I can get to come for you again, understand?"

She gave him a curt not and dipped into her knees yet, giving the impression of a wild cat, alert and ready to react.

He moved swiftly, prompted by her confidence and because he knew she would be up to it.

With a quick step forward, he closed the distance between them and darted to her, upper body first. Rachel threw herself out of his reach like she'd never done anything else in her life and by the time he could catch his own momentum, she was back on her feet, hands resting on her hips smugly.

Blaine gave her a short approving smile before he headed towards her again, taking her by surprise but not enough to grab her. She still got past him, falling harder this time but was still swiftly back on her feet.

They did that a couple of times until Rachel started complaining that she knew how to do it now and he could as well amp up the challenge a little bit. He did her the favor.

They practiced rolls and yielding hits and Rachel kept up impressively so there was plenty of time for them to start working on defense and shielding moves. Which was the part Blaine was nervous about because it involved way more body contact.

"Let's see what you come equipped with, shall we?", he asked, helping her up from a roll when he decided that it was no use to stall moving on any more, "I will attack you and you try to defend yourself, don't initiate own attacks, just block mine, okay?"

He didn't use a specific technique on her, trying to prepare her for a mix of attacks, so he threw in some kick boxing moves, good old fashioned punches and some karate chops. She blew off every single one. Given he didn't use full force on her but for her first day at this she came with excellent reflexes and great intuition. She blocked his arms, even his legs, used what she learned the rest of the day and, to his surprise, managed got him breathless a couple of times.

Eventually, they stopped taking breathers in between attacks and blocks and the situation got more and more intense and eventually out of hand.

He _did_ notice her breath flaring up then, as she panted in short huffs and he tried intently not to hear it, not to react to it and so he went for more attacks instead. He lost himself a bit, moving faster and harder with her.

But then she made the mistake to attack him despite their agreement – if it was because of reflex or intention he wouldn't be able to recall later but he knew that he reacted instinctively; catching her by the attacking arm and lifting her up, working her tiny body around his and putting her on the floor in a swift, automatized movement.

He only got back to his senses when he towered over her, hands on her shoulder and hip and he looked down into her widened eyes. He wanted to apologize in face of her shock, worried that he'd hurt her but then he felt his legs give out when she twisted hers up, making him loose balance and he toppled over.

Just as quickly as him, she turned their positions around, rolling up over him and quickly sitting down, straddling him, knees pushed tightly to his sides and hands getting a hold of his wrists, pushing them down next to his stunned face.

Her ponytail and star of David necklace dangled over his face as she bent over him like that, her whole weight on him and they both tried to catch their breath.

It was too much sensory input for him to hold on to his mental blockade and momentarily his brain was flooded with figments of his imagination, mingling with the sight above him; Rachel, on top, sweating and breathing in hard rhythmical huffs, her scent in the air and her hands on his skin, her legs spread just where she met his heat.

He felt something below the waist twitch, where she sat on him, a familiar mix of desire and discomfort at the lack of space and yearning for friction and his eyes were clouded a shade darker.

And then she gave him a funny look which snapped him right back into reality. And also caused him to realize that he was having an erection against the thigh of his barely legal charge.

He was on his feet in no time, lifting her up with him effortlessly, setting her on her two feet without so much as meeting her eye again.

"Good work, I'll see you tomorrow", he mumbled, already on his hasty way out. He didn't even bother to collect his jacket from the floor, he wouldn't be needing it in the icy cold shower he was headed to.

* * *

><p>The last thing Blaine wanted was to see Rachel again before the next morning but when he heard a timid knock on his door that night his protective instincts forbid him to not open the door. She could be hurt or scared after all.<p>

He dragged himself to the door and hoped she'd make it short or just wanted him to look for monsters under her bed but the way he knew her, she most definitely wouldn't.

She greeted him with a big smile but what made him grin in return was her pink pajama, complete with a cheesy hearts-print. If anyone had presented her like this and told him she could potentially be dangerous to national security he would have laughed aloud.

"Is something wrong?", he asked when his eyes had wandered up on her again.

"No", she said, "I just wanted some company and I found something funny in this I want to try with you"

She held up a teen magazine and his heart stopped beating for a second, expecting god knows what. There was sex-educational stuff in these magazines, wasn't there? Maybe she'd come solely to torture him about his...mishap earlier. Or worse, maybe she wanted to actually really _try_ something sexually educating with him, because she thought he would be up to it. And he would absolutely not be up to it, not ever. Naturally.

His alarmed or rather terrified stare seemed to amuse her.

"So can I come in or are you gonna let me stand in the cold hall on my bare feet all night?"

She was indeed not wearing socks or slippers and after a moment of sincere deliberating, he reluctantly stepped aside to let her in the room.

She hopped over to his bed of all places, clutching the magazine. She was all chipper again.

Warily, he kept his distance, closing the door and then walking to the desk opposite the bed, leaning against the wooden chair he'd sat on just moments before.

"So do you want to try this thing with me?", she asked him again, sitting cross legged like pure innocence.

"What thing?", he wasn't sure if he really wanted to know.

"There's this questionnaire", she said and he sighed in relief, "and since you still owe me some trivia about yourself I thought we could play, I'm sure there are no questions in here that you'll find classified answers to"

"You're not gonna stop bugging me unless I do it, aren't you?"

"No", she grinned happily and spread the magazine open in front of her, "Come on, sit"

It was more an order than an invitation and he obeyed with a furrowed brow, sitting down at the far end of the bed.

"Blaine, I have to yell for you to hear me back there", she complained, "Scoot over, don't be shy"

He shook his head but didn't want to push her patience, something told him that she was well aware of the leverage she had on him, with him near-miss ravaging her earlier. He ended up sitting across her, still at a considerable distance but close enough to see the light reflexes in her shiny chocolate brown hair sharply. Crossing his legs, he sent up a prayer that the damned questionnaire didn't contain any sexual questions.

"Okay, here we go", she announced and then read aloud, "What is your best friends name? - Oh and I will answer too, for fairness. So my best friend's name is Tina"

"Matt", he said curtly, "I've known him since Kindergarten and he always stuck with me"

"Is he cute?", when he ignored this she went on, "What color panties or boxers are you wearing right now?"

Then she paused, holding up a finger to stop him from answering before slipping her thumb under the rim of her pajama pants, pushing the elastic band away from her, exposing a bit of her stomach in the process and he knew she wore purple panties before she said so.

"Mine are black", he gladly knew without checking.

"Boxers or briefs by the way?", she asked, "This isn't actually in there, I'm just curious"

"Then I don't have to answer it", he stated but her raised eyebrow and challenging look defeated him – this girl was currently in possession of her very own kind of truth serum, "Boxer briefs"

"I thought so", was her only reaction, "Next up; What's your favorite number? Mine's 13 because most people hate it"

"2, for no particular reason"

"What was the last thing you ate? I had a candy bar from the fridge"

"PB&J, just before you came to interrogate me"

"If you were a crayon what color would you be?", she asked and then they both mused for a second, "I think I'd be hot pink"

"Green or blue", he answered, "Something calming"

"I wouldn't have expected anything less", she smiled, "Ooh, now we're getting to the interesting stuff; The first thing you notice about the opposite sex?"

"Do I really have to?", he whined, "Let's hear yours first"

"Fine, but let me go on the record saying you're a wimp", she mocked, "Posture actually, a certain kind of integrity, when a guy knows how to handle himself that's very appealing. I figured that out with my ex..he was all limbs and all over the place, about as graceful as a bag of potatoes, it stops being cute pretty fast"

He smiled at her honesty and had to admit he was impressed with her answer, so his was actually, despite original resolve, the truth, "Lips"

She licked hers just on cue, right when his eyes fell down to them automatically. They were pretty, full and rosy and he had to force himself to look away. If she'd caught him starring she kindly didn't let it on.

"Do you have a significant other?", through her poise shone a considerable amount of real curiosity and also a bit of fear – which made him oddly proud.

"No", he answered truthfully and she couldn't keep all the traces of approval of her face before saying the same. He wondered if he was better at hiding his own approval than she was.

Not that him being happy that she was single was for...well, it wasn't for the sake of being single, it was just one less factor to worry about concerning her safe keeping, clearly.

"Siblings?", she asked, "I'm a lonely only child...my Dads always say they couldn't handle a second one like me around"

"I have an older brother, he's a lawyer in Boston"

"Can you do a headstand?", she looked up before adding, "But without leaning against a wall? Because I can"

"Actually no", he said and she snorted, boasting adorably.

Then, eying him curiously, "Hugs or Kisses?"

"Kisses", he said and held her gaze, shooting her a look to maybe possibly try running her off track a little.

She swallowed hard and her head wobbled a bit, lips opening and then closing again before finally, "Kissing"

She cleared her throat then and looked back down at the magazine, taking a second to find where she'd left off, "Chocolate or Vanilla?"

"Vanilla", he said, knowing she would say the same, she always smelled like it. He wasn't sure if it was her body lotion or Shampoo but even at this distance he could smell a sweet note of Vanilla coming from her. Not that he'd been paying attention to her scent.

"Dogs or cats?", she asked, "This is actually a test of character, I for one, have little respect for dog-people"

"Ah, that stings", he feigned hurt and clutched his heart dramatically, "Because I am one"

"Looser", was her verdict before continuing, "Favorite flower? Mine are Gerberas, all colors"

"Tulips, red and yellow", he said, "They're kind of fragile and it's best not to pick them at all but they are pretty"

"Have you ever been caught doing something you weren't supposed to do?", she read and then tapped her chin, mocking deep thought, "Let's see, what got me here, oh, I don't know..."

"Yes", he said and she tried starring him down to get him to elaborate, "Nope, that's all you'll get out of me for that one"

"Fine", she scoffed, "Who would you like to see right now? I'm going with Mom, because it doesn't say alive or dead"

"Now that you mention it, I haven't seen my Mom in almost a year", he said quickly, "So yes, Mom, I'd like to see my Mom"

"See, that wasn't too hard was it? We're already at the second to last question; Have you ever fired a gun? I haven't..but then you're a fed so I'm going with a yes for you"

He nodded and she went on to the last question, "Name the top three qualities you look for in a partner"

"That's hard", he said, "Hmm, I'd say...loyalty, a certain vibrance to her personality and wit"

"Good choices", she acknowledged, "I'm going with sincerity, kindness and a good sense of humor"

They kept talking for a while but he eventually got her to go to bed when it was past midnight. A long day awaited them and even if he hadn't known it then, it would entail a last minute change of plans – and additional training for Rachel.

Grace, the tech-wiz called him just after he'd gotten up the next morning and told him something that made him wake Rachel up even earlier than usually.

She was still in her pink pajamas when she answered the door, tiredly blinking up at him, hair striking into every possible direction and he thought she'd maybe just gotten out of bed.

"You're twenty minutes early", she said, still squishy faced, her eyes small slits that somehow managed to glimmer dangerously anyway.

"Something's come up", he said, "Grace found out a little more about the ball, it's in a New York hotel and they are using their server for their data transfer"

"What does that mean?", Rachel asked, leaning against her door frame.

"It means we have to go undercover", he answered.

"We?", her eyes were suddenly wide with shock, "You mean I'm going in too?"

"Precisely, we need your hands and eyes on that computer", he said, "You can dance, right?"

"What?", she swallowed hard, eyes even wider if that was at all possible. He was pretty sure she'd heard him alright.

"Come on, get dressed, we're gonna get you ready"

* * *

><p><em><strong>The next chapter will take us to NYC..it will still be in Blaine's POV. How do you think Rachel will deal with the big bad guys?<strong>_


	5. Chapter Four

_**Author's Note: **So I got three more reviews for the last chapter and hereby keeping my promise to update today. I hope you like and please please keep reviewing, that's the only validation a writer here gets :)_

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><p><strong>Chapter Four<strong>

Blaine picked Rachel up at JFK about two weeks later, he briefed her about their mission when still in the car. They were going to the Ball, with a surveillance truck, operated by Kevin and a tactical team ready to move in, in case anything went wrong. Which he was very clear on avoiding at all costs.

"We'll be in and out, assess the situation, get into their server room in the basement, steal their data and replace the info they plan on selling the Chinese with junk and then we get out of there and be done", he said, "Are you up to that?"

Rachel nodded but had a more pressing question, "How am I going to fit in with all these fancy people?"

"Don't worry", Blaine said, "I'm taking you to our hotel where the FBI's very own Glam Squad awaits you"

"You got a Glam Squad?", Rachel asked wide eyed, smiling when he turned his attention to her at a traffic light. He looked good, perfectly groomed and back in his usual suit but the tension stretching his features gave away his alert state for the operation.

"You'll love them", he reassured and before she knew they arrived at a four star hotel downtown, Rachel getting out, breathing the colder New York air. She loved the city, had fallen in love when her _Glee_ club had been to Nationals the year before, though it all seemed oddly far away now.

She adjusted her short vintage dress and tucked her outgrowing bangs behind her ear, bracing herself with a deep breath before going in, led by a gently placed hand on her back. Blaine smiled down at her encouragingly.

They walked into the lobby and at first Rachel didn't even notice that the meticulously dressed, staggeringly attractive, 6'2 blonde approaching them was talking to them.

"This is what you give me to work with, Agent Anderson?", the woman said, eying her over and grabbed Blaine to place a kiss on his cheek before turning her attention to the smaller girl, "Oh well, I've seen worse"

"Hey", Rachel protested, not a fan of being looked down at like this. Her personal style was impeccable, god dammit.

"Oh, darling, not to say that you don't look like an exceptional cute version of an American Girl Doll but it's not exactly the look we're going for", the blonde said, "My name is Trish by the way and we'll have you ready in four hours, so you'll be believable as Mr. Handsome's wife here"

"I'll be your wife?", Rachel said, her stomach fluttering in an instant as she wound out of Trish's hand over her shoulder to look at Blaine who stayed behind.

"Just for tonight", he said with an unreadable expression and then smiled, "You're in good hands now, your luggage has been sent to your room and I will pick you up at 7 PM sharp, don't be late"

"Don't worry your pretty little head", Trish scoffed and dragged Rachel on, "She won't be"

Rachel's room was on one of the top floors but she didn't have time to remotely appreciate the spectacular view payed for by government expenses because Trish introduced her quickly to her three minions; Gary, an obvious flaming homosexual with an armor belt of scissors and hair products, Jenna, a stylist rattling an array of red dresses on a rack and Kayla, self-proclaimed master of mani and pedi.

Rachel would've lied if she said she didn't like the prospect of being pampered by them. She simply assumed her fantasy role of a diva superstar, something she'd longed to be all her life before the death of her mother had tainted that dream.

"Very well", Gary said, stepping behind her, humming approvingly, "You got a good head of hair to work with here"

"Thanks?", Rachel said when he pushed her down on a wooden chair.

Kayla started on her feet and hands without so much as a warning while Trish joined Jenna with the dresses, conspiring in hushed tones, in turns looking at the fabrics and Rachel.

"What?", she huffed at them when she'd had enough.

"We're wondering what color goes with your skin best", Jenna informed her kindly.

"They're all red?", Rachel said, furrowing her brow.

"Hardly, Darling", Trish replied, mirroring her expression before turning back to Jenna as if Rachel had never said anything, "I'd go with the slightly more maroon one for her, or with a yellowy touch, no purples or pinks for her, they won't mash too well with her olive tone"

Rachel wrinkled her nose, bullshit, she looked great in pink. What did that Trish person know?

"Rachel", Jenna smiled, the friendly one addressing her again, "Would you try on some dresses for us when Kayla's done with your nails?"

"But she has to be careful with the rolls in her hair", Gary warned, fixing Rachel's hair up with an array of big curling rolls. Rachel slightly wobbled her head, trying to make him know she understood. Somehow they all seemed to think she was an idiot.

"So you get to work with Agent Anderson today?", Kayla spoke for the first time since Rachel had sat down and there was a kind of slight envy in her voice Rachel thought herself well capable of if their roles had been reversed.

It had taken her a while but a heart to heart with Tina had made her admit to her honest to god feelings for Blaine.

The first two days that Rachel was back at school after fall break, Tina hadn't failed to notice her great mood, along with numerous occasions in class where Rachel just stared off into the near distance, a dopey grin plastered on her face without her being really aware of it.

"You're in love", Tina had assessed simply one time they stood at their lockers.

"No, no of course not", Rachel had snapped out of her trance way too quickly for her denial holding any kind of substance.

"You're full of it, come on tell me", Tina said, "Did you meet someone at that music camp?"

"Well", Rachel said because she did kind of felt like she wanted to talk about it and if she could work it in with her cover story she could might as well confide in her friend, "It's a bit complicated, but yes, I met him when I was away..but I'm not in love. Just a crush maybe. He's a pain in the ass really. But..turns out I really like him underneath it all"

She'd noted that it felt nice to come clean, not only to Tina – in a way at least – but also to herself. She'd been struggling with dealing with the butterflies that had started emerging sometime there at Quantico but she figured there was no harm in a silly crush. After all, Blaine was painfully attractive, smart and caring and he made her laugh, it was only natural that she felt attracted to him.

It didn't matter so much to her that he was older, she felt like all the boys her own age were little boys and no match for her anyway but she was also realistic, teasing him was fun but if she really wanted on him, she had to be inventive.

Right now, as Gary was nearly done with rolling her hair up, she let her mind wonder to the possibilities the night could bring ones they went through with their job at hand. Maybe if she could get Blaine to go out with her – appropriately dressed as they would be – New York would work it's magic on him. She smirked and then suddenly realized she'd completely ignored Kayla's question from before.

"Yeah", she blurted, "Um, yeah. He trained me for this, in Quantico"

"So that's where he's been all this time", Trish quipped from the other side of the room, "I thought he'd moved town or something"

Rachel gave her a puzzled look and she took the hint, answering her unspoken plea for elaboration, "He's based here, he lives here in New York, not far from this hotel actually, hasn't he told you?"

"No", Rachel said, wondering why it never came to her mind to ask him where he lived, "It hasn't come up yet"

"You're ready, doll", Gary informed her, patting her shoulder as if to send her off just when Kayla released her toes.

"Fantastic", Jenna said and walked over to her, grabbing her by the hand and taking her over to the clothing rack, shoving about five red dresses onto Rachel's under arm, "We're well on the clock so take your time trying these on"

The first one was pretty but sort of plain, a simple tight red dress with Spaghetti straps and a slit up to her knees. She pursed her lips in front of the mirror and met about the same unconvinced expression she sported, on the others.

"The fit is spectacular but it's a little...non-sensational enough, don't you think?", Jenna said and the others, including Rachel, nodded.

The second dress was a shade lighter but the shoulder part and long sleeve made Rachel's look go from thirteen to thirty, as Trish put it charmingly and so it was ruled out too.

When Rachel got out of the bathroom with the third dress on, Kayla rose to her feet while Trish, Jenna and Gary dropped their jaws.

"That's it", Trish declared and seemed very proud.

"You sure?", Rachel asked, self consciously fidgeting at the garment, "It's a little itchy"

"Oh, I know some tricks that will keep you in it just fine, it's the one, trust me", Trish reaffirmed, "But now take it off, I don't want the make up to drizzle all over it"

At 7 PM sharp, Rachel stood in the lobby with her Glam Squad standing by to observe Blaine's reaction once he saw her. They weren't disappointed.

* * *

><p>Blaine stepped up the stairs of the lobby and hardly recognized the stunning woman standing there waiting for him as Rachel Berry. Sure she'd been cute the first day he'd met her but there still was more of a transformation than he'd imagined hazily pacing through his living room earlier.<p>

She looked hands down fantastic, so drastically different from her frumpy animal sweaters and thick, tweed skirts. The dress fell from her hips to the floor, a long slit perfect for dancing went up to her lower thigh, making it hard not to linger at the sight for longer.

But it was worth to pry his eyes away to see how the fabric clutched her waist tighter on the way up, lace and embroidered ornaments like flowers entwining around the the bust part and a spectacular neck line, leading focus to all the great features Rachel came with as she was. The piece of clothing merely enhanced what was already there but man, it did a great job of it.

And her hair was shiny and perfectly curled, hanging lose with her bangs divided to the side, falling into her forehead a little. She didn't wear heavy make-up but her eyes seemed bigger and awake and she had a certain kind of glow that he really did not notice how his mouth dropped open.

"Pretty decent job, huh?", Trish called from her observing position at the back and snapped Blaine out of his gawking.

"Uh, yeah", he answered her but not taking his eyes off of Rachel, "You look...great, um, are you good to go?

She nodded her okay and he didn't wait to get them going, the way to the hotel driven in less than ten minutes despite traffic, where Blaine gave her silver earrings with a tracking device and traded her own ballet flats she still wore for a special set of heels.

"Okay, remember, eyes on the price and blend in", he said upon going in and then turned to the receptionist giving him their fake names from the guest list.

"Here we go, Mrs. Jones", he said once they got past the entrance and stepped into the remarkably pretty ballroom, "Ready?"

"Ready as ever, Mr. Jones", she replied and linked arms with him.

"Ooh, champagne," Rachel said a little too excited for her grown woman cover, reaching out to take one of the tall flutes of amber liquid from a waiter's tray. They'd been standing around for a while, Blaine making mental notes of all familiar faces, eager to stay out of their eyelines in turn.

When he saw Rachel claiming the bubbly from the corner of his eye, he plucked it from her fingers before she could take a sip and set it down on the bar without so much as a comment.

"Hey! I wanted that", Rachel protested momentarily.

"Absolutely not", he said distractedly, craning his neck to look over her head, carefully studying the crowd of people around them, "You're underage, and we're _working_ in case you have forgotten"

She huffed and crossed her arms, "No, I haven't forgotten, how could I? I was just trying to keep up appearances. Plus, if I have to be dressed up in this pompous outfit then I want to at least have some fun"

Blaine turned his attention away from the crowd for a second and looked her over once again, the red, satin-smooth dress, hugging her body tight in all the right places, the color reflecting back to her slick head of hair, long waves of chocolate falling on her slim shoulders in the most tempting way.

The sight of her – the _touch_ of her – as they pretended was enough to make Blaine's throat dry with want. He swallowed hard, shaking the thoughts from his head, and returned to scanning the room. He really needed to stop getting so easily side-tracked by her. He was on a mission and part of that mission entailed keeping her safe, especially in a situation like this. One that could so very easily get out of hand.

He'd told them before that he thought it was a stupid idea to let her come with him and he never understood but had no choice. It just made no sense to him to expose her like that, he wondered if his higher ups _wanted_ her to be seen.

If they deliberately tried to dangle her in _their_ faces like some sick war trophy. His bosses failed to see that Rachel wasn't just a means to an end, not a clever placed pawn but actually a person. A person with feelings, a wonderful yet damaged human being, someone damn well worth of protecting and not to drain for some tactical gain for their operation.

He had tried to change their minds but they'd been very clear that he was overstepping privileges. It was out of his hands and he hated it.

"You look fine", he replied finally, remembering that he's still left her self-conscious statement concerning her wardrobe hang in the air, "Stop fidgeting."

"I can't", Rachel snaps, making him turn to her again, "You won't believe what your people had to pluck and pull to get me into this dress"

Blaine quirked an eyebrow at the implications and she blushed when she realized the images she'd probably just planted in his brain. It was nice to see that she had her moments too.

"Never mind", she groaned, looking away, "Didn't you say we have a job to do?"

The special agent nodded, nudging her gently away from the bar, "Yes, and we should get started. In and out before anyone notices us. Do you copy, that's important?"

"Lead the way," Rachel said, slipping her arm into the crook of his elbow, "And um, yeah, I copy"

Blaine raised his sleeve up to his mouth, inconspicuously scratching his hairline, talking into the hidden mic in his cuffs, "We're making a move, tell me immediately when the bird lands"

"Who's the bird?", Rachel asked but Blaine preferred not to answer.

But then Rachel wasn't stupid and did her math on her own, "Oh, _Pyra_, right, he's the bird, ugh, silly me"

"Could you keep your voice down, darling?", he whispered, leading her to the dance floor, "Let's get to the back there"

He nodded towards the far end, where he'd spotted _Sapphir_ security earlier, "See the bald and massive gentleman over at the buffet"

"Vlad", Rachel said, "I recognize him from the files, he's their head of security, been with _Sapphir_ for ten years, Russian and just as bulldoggy as he looks"

"Well put", Blaine acknowledged, "And we're gonna dance our way over and you'll distract him, being your charming self while I get his clearance card for the server room"

"Let's do it", Rachel said, lips pursed with concentration and a hint of worry if he wasn't mistaking.

"You'll be fine", he reassured and dearly hoped he would be right.

He lowered his hand to the small of her back and turned her to face him, in a fluid motion she brought her one arm on her shoulder and the other fell into his as he brought their arms out and her closer.

They began moving to the music, a tango and kept his eyes on the moving crowd, trying to navigate her swiftly to the other end of the ballroom but he got slightly distracted by the way she swayed his hips against him.

In a weak moment he glanced down at her, meeting her eyes and she smiled, her cheeks flushed again. He turned her around, not able to look away for a while, even when she let out a huffed breath and looked down. She really was an exquisite dancer. Their movements were in sync, carrying them over the hardwood floor as if they were swirling on clouds. For a second he about forgot that he had anything do to besides marvel at her and the way she so seamlessly fit into his arms.

But then he caught a glimpse of a bald head and snapped back into work mode. He pulled Rachel closer and used the momentum to throw her back out, grabbing her hand off his shoulder, twirling her under his arm before pulling her close again, her backside lining his front.

"I'm gonna twirl you back out now", he whispered close to her ear, painfully aware of her hitching breath, "I'll let you go and blend in and you step on Vlad's toes, okay?"

She turned her head toward him to nod but stopped when the corner of her lips met his mouth by accident. They were so close, too close, a current of energy jolting through him, making his cheeks feel flushed like a fever. If he'd just leaned in an inch he could kiss her.

She froze, holding her breath and so did he, although he still managed to keep them on beat somehow.

As quickly as it happened, the heated moment faded, with probably took a lot of will power for both of them.

"Okay", Rachel whispered breathlessly and he took it as cue to push her away from him again. Somehow every nerve in his body protested the action.

When she let go off his hand he disappeared out of sight between two dancing couples and then blended in with people at the buffet, getting behind the burly Russian with ease. Rachel's high soprano rang in his head, telling her she was doing an eager job of busying the giant.

"You sure we never met before?", he heard him say with a thick accent and then caught Rachel's eye behind her, nodding curtly as his fingers closed around the key card sticking out of the wallet in Vlad's back pocket.

"Yes, absolutely", Rachel piped, "But again, I'm really sorry about your foot, um, I have to go now, uh, see you later"

She joined Blaine behind a couple of suits and dresses and they wordlessly made their way out of the room, headed towards the servants staircase, leading into the basement.

"I don't know whether Vlad was awkwardly flirting with me or I have a doppelgänger", she said, following him down the steps as quickly as her heels allowed her, "He was sure he'd met me before"

"Uh-huh", Blaine said, trying to slow his steps so she could catch up with him.

"Yeah and it's weird because I hardly have a nondescript face, right?", she went on as they reached their destined level.

"Maybe for Russians you do?", he said, letting them into a door that read "Private".

"Probably", Rachel mumbled and followed him inside.

They entered another corridor, painted with cold, sanitary grays and five doors on each side. Blaine led the way, using the key card to open the third on the right. Inside he found what he'd been looking for; a server as big as the room, signal lights blinking and endless wires linking different parts of the giant computer. Rachel's eyes were glistening.

"Wow", she breathed, "What a babe"

"No time to admire her, come on, we gotta get going", he commanded and held out his arm for Rachel to hold on to as she lifted her leg and produced a miniature memory stick from her heel.

She got back on her two feet and stepped up to the screen and keyboard set up in the middle of the room.

With a tap of her finger she woke it from it's sleep, finding a locking screen. But something silly as password protection didn't keep Rachel Berry out. He had no idea what she was doing but she was doing it well, hammering away on the keys, at a time with one hand as the other inserted the stick into the drive.

There was different windows popping open on the screen, one with code, one with documents, one with letters and a download bar that was fast approaching 100 %. Rachel was still punching away on the board.

"How's it going?", Blaine asked from his guarding position at the door, clutching his SIG, alert and ready to shoot any untimely intruder.

"Good", Rachel answered, "They didn't protect their treasure chest all that well. It's hard to penetrate from outside but once you get your hands on this beauty it's a piece of cake. There, I already downloaded their stuff, like stealing candy from a baby"

She produced the stick and put it back in her heel, shifting her weight to take out an identical looking one from her other heel, looking up smugly, "And now on to plant the decoy"

The _Phantom_ was in her element and he'd have smiled at her obvious excitement and pride if he weren't so on edge.

"Done and done", Rachel said after an even shorter period then before, "They won't sell the Chinese any information they don't already have now"

"Good", Blaine said curtly, his well deserved praise for her would have to wait until they were out there safely, "Now let's get out of here"

Rachel affirmed and was at his side in no time – and not a second too late. Just when he closed the door behind them, sounds emerged from beyond the one they went in through, huffed harsh and most definitely Russian words echoing to them through the narrow corridor.

"Quick, we're taking the other exit", Blaine said.

He closed the shutter of the air duct system just when six pairs of feet roamed the corridor.

Urging Rachel to crawl on faster, he was a little sorry that he would never see Vlad's stupid face when he found his key card sitting next to the computer.

Their Plan B escape route worked just as planned, letting them out at the eastern staircase. From then on it was just up, past the circus around the ballroom without detection, through the lobby and job well done.

When they walked back into the circus the band had stopped playing and just when they passed the open doors giving way – and perfect view – to the stage, the blabbering died down completely.

_Shit_, Blaine thought as Kevin's voice barked into his in-ear, "The bird has landed, I repeat, the bird has landed"

But he already knew when an all too familiar voice filled ballroom and circus at the worst possible moment of all.

* * *

><p>Rachel was buzzing, cranked up with adrenaline and like on a sugar high from her success, feeling like a super spy. She hardly noticed Blaine stopping dead in his tracks beside her.<p>

When she stopped walking like a shot had hit her in the chest, she did it not for him, by then, she'd completely forgotten about him and anything else for that matter, as an oddly familiar voice filled ballroom and circus. A voice she'd thought she'd never hear ever again.

She turned her head to look past the sea of heads, the huge wooden doors stood open, giving perfect view to the stage throning over the guests – and then the whole world stopped turning, her heart stopped beating and her blood was ice in her veins while her skin burned up.

From far away she heard a hushed, breathy, unbelieving whisper she hardly recognized as her own.

"_Mom_"


	6. Chapter Five

_**Author's Note: **Quick update to put ya'll out of your misery. Hugs and kisses to Ashley, Loidé and Rach who are tremendous and fabulous help on this. I love you girls!_

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><p><strong>Chapter Five<strong>

Everything was hazy after seeing a living ghost standing on that stage, Rachel barely remembered Blaine dragging her out by the hand. He used some force because she wouldn't move but she hardly noticed. She was also only dimly aware of Blaine waving off Kevin, who had ran to them on the sidewalk, huffing that he would take care of it and then him putting her in the car, driving her to the hotel.

It was like she'd been stuck into bubble wrap, outside noises and lights just passing by, she wasn't paying attention, her mind was blank, wiped off everything but the image of her mother on that stage. Aged. But definitely her mother. _Mom_, it ghosted through her brain which overloaded just by the sheer process of trying to figure out how it could even be. Yet, she couldn't hold on to a single coherent thought, everything was mashed and mixed up, a dull blur threatening to swallow her whole.

She didn't remember how she even got into her hotel room, just that by the time he closed the door tentatively all the pieces had finally fallen in place and suddenly she saw red, her insides flaming up with anger, disappointment and the harsh sting of betrayal.

"You knew this all along", she startled herself with her flat out scream at Blaine, darting up from where he'd sat her down on the bed, everything tumbling down on her and it was too much to even consider keeping her voice down.

Blaine just looked at her and that made everything worse.

"You knew that it's her, _Pyra_?", she screamed on and closed the distance between them, shoving him hard, he caught himself from toppling over but that was it for any reaction, "That's why you guys got me in the first place? You fucking probably had red flags on me for a while and now the time was right for the secret weapon? This was never about my abilities, this was about her all along"

Nothing from Blaine still. It drove her wild.

"And you let me go on and on about my dead mother when you knew?", she cried, "You let me spill it all like an idiot and all the time you knew she was alive? And you, like, didn't think that maybe you should tell me that not only is she still under the living, but no, she's also the head of an evil organization trying to sell out the United States? And how dare you stand there and not say anything?"

"Rachel, I...", he shook his head helplessly, for the first time since she'd met him lost of words.

"You, _what_?", she screamed and shoved him again, still not meeting any resistance, so she started punching him while finally her tears got the better of her, "You lied to me, you lied to me all along and you made me trust you, fuck, you made me...feel...you fucking asshole"

Her view was blurred by tears and her words came out choked, in slurred hysteria while she kept punching and hitting his chest until his arms closed around her torso and he pulled her closer, clasping her tightly so she couldn't move an inch.

She wanted to fight him but there was nothing left and her sobs shook her body so violently that she'd fallen over hadn't he been holding her upright. She only saw the black Italian linen of his suit as she opened her eyes, her body thinking it would somehow help with getting oxygen as she was well on her way of hyperventilating. But it didn't work, nothing worked. She felt like a child that's crying itself away and she couldn't think, couldn't breathe and then everything was black as she collapsed in Blaine's arms.

* * *

><p>When Rachel woke up again she felt three tons heavy, dried tears making her lashes stick together and almost impossible to open with the little energy she could find in herself.<p>

The room was drenched in sunlight so she must have slept the whole night through. But she didn't feel rested. She felt weak and hollow and empty.

Slowly, with every half inch she got her eyes to open, the image she saw became clearer. She lay on yellow sheets and just a reach of her hand away, so close that his radiating body heat warmed her, lay Blaine, hands under his head, the sleeves of his white tux shirt rolled up, not wearing his tie or shoes. He hadn't noticed her waking up yet. She wanted to be angry with him, hate him but instead she was just sad and hurt.

"Have you been here all night?", she asked, voice still brittle from crying, screaming and her coma-sleeping.

Blaine's face twitched to her and he seemed almost relieved that she was awake but then immediately his expression changed to worry and guilt, if she read it right, head still barely facing up to him on her pillow.

"I couldn't just leave you alone like that", he said and Rachel had to agree with him but for other reasons than his.

"What were you thinking?", she asked, failing to put the sting she wanted into her words, she just couldn't get it out. She felt the sting but she couldn't lay it on him, no matter how hard she tried, her voice died on her.

"I was following orders", he said helplessly and scooted down on the mattress to be level with her, turning to his side and supporting his head with his arm propped up.

This was the most hurtful thing he could have possibly said, it choked Rachel, took the air out of her lungs and made her bury her face in the cushion, not wanting him the tears that met no resistance from falling anymore. She wondered how she even had any left.

"Rachel", it was a plea and a beg rolled into one pained sigh and she could tell he wanted to be anybody else but she didn't feel sympathy for him, "I'm so sorry"

"So...so, god, all of this was a lie?", she mumbled into the pillow, trying hard to talk around her newly welling up sobs, "You just put up this act so we became..friends because they told you to? Just so I could be a pawn in this sick game?"

"No, it wasn't a lie", he said and she scoffed, finally achieving to sound just as bitter and disbelieving as she felt, "Not all of it"

"Then what part was?", she rapidly turned her head back up to meet his eyes, determined not to fall for his puppy dog look and she didn't, "Huh? Which parts were just lies and deceit, Blaine? Because to me it feels like a shitload of bull, _all_ of it"

He winced, "I never wanted to lie to you, I just...I couldn't tell you about _Pyra_...your _mother_. I couldn't. And I never wanted to bring you out into the field either, I tried to convince my bosses to rethink but they didn't and I didn't have a choice, you were never supposed to see her, not in my book"

"What because I'm better off thinking she is dead?", Rachel asked pointedly, "Because you think you can decide that for me? What's best for me? You have no fucking idea"

She found new strength out of her anger, enough to sit up straight and turn away from him to swallow hard and wipe her tears, when she spoke again he had sat up too and her voids came out as daggers.

"You don't know anything about me or my life or what it's like growing up without a mother, so don't walk around like you have any idea what's good for me, what you should keep a secret from me. You. Don't. Know. Me"

"I know that", he said through gritted teeth and the amount of frustration swinging along made Rachel even more agitated. He had no right to be frustrated or impatient. He was the one in the wrong here.

"Then why?", she barked, demanding answers, "Why didn't you want me to know. _You_, personally. Because your bosses obviously didn't care – or maybe they were even speculating on it"

"Because she's not the woman you know, Rachel", he said intendedly, "Not all the way at least"

"How do you know?", she asked, now more puzzled than raging.

Blaine sighed defeatedly and looked at her, shaking his head ever so slightly.

"No, you don't get to buck out, you answer me right now", she commanded, "No more lies"

"I am not supposed to talk about it, with anybody"

"Screw this, Blaine", she yelled, "I'm already knees deep in this thanks to you and your blackmailing me, there's more to this and I want to know. I deserve to know"

He paused, deliberating for a while and then he got up, took his jacket from a stool nearby and Rachel halfway wanted to jump up and dragging him back before he dared to leave but instead he pore himself a glass of Whiskey from the mini bar.

Fair enough, if he wanted to tell her drunk, he might as well but then he didn't drink it, he just picked the cuffs from his sleeves and let them drop into the amber liquid, "Just to be save"

He joined her back on the bed, sitting just as close as before and she still couldn't understand how she could still be so mad at him but not at all oppose to him being just a dip away from her. It didn't make sense.

"What I'm gonna tell you can never leave this room", he said quietly, "And I know I can't ask you to trust me but I need to trust _you_ on this"

"My loyalty is not the one in question here", she said and he winced again at her jab.

"Do you remember when I told you I got recruited out of school?", he asked her finally and went on when she nodded, "I was fifteen. And I wasn't recruited by the FBI. It was _Sapphir_. It was Shelby"

An ice cold shudder went down Rachel's spine when he said her mother's name. Ten years ago. She recruited Blaine out of school ten years ago. About the time Rachel and her Dad buried an empty coffin and life as she knew had ended. As it seemed it did for both her and Blaine.

"How?", she asked, her anger fading, making way for wonder and a yearning for truth, for answers.

"I grew up in Seattle, I told you that, Private School, all kinds of pampering but I can't remember a time when I was ever happy, you know? My father has a big business, a huge, wealthy company and he was never there. And when he was, everything was always about my brother, his great grades, his bright future, his academic and sportive achievements. I always fell short and I was angry and detached. That's when I met Shelby. I was on my way home from fencing and she had a flat tire"

He paused for a second to recollect his memory, "Of course it was a ruse but we got talking and eventually she told me that our meeting hadn't been coincidental and if I wasn't angry at how my family was treating me, if I wasn't hating Dad's company for being more important than his family, than _me_, if I didn't hate that _everything_ was more important than me. And if I didn't want to do something about it, you know, get back at them for all of it"

Rachel listened, mouth agape, she couldn't imagine her Mom doing something like that, "What did she want you to do?"

"Corporate Espionage basically", he answered, "But I didn't know that this was what it's called at first, I was a kid. I just thought I'd scoop around in Dad's office and at the Seattle branch and taunt them a little bit, get back at them. Shelby promised nobody would ever suspect me and they never did, not to this day but it was bad. I cost them a lot of money. _A lot of money_"

He almost smiled then, as if he was talking about a little boys prank, "But _Sapphir_ was happy with me and I was happy being part of it. I knew it must've been wrong somehow but frankly, I didn't give a shit. I was..so angry all the time and I'd always tried to be the good boy, do anything to be like my brother but it was never enough, I was never enough but for Shelby I was. More than that. She was proud of me, she talked to me when my own parents wouldn't. Heck, I got girl advice from her while my mother buzzed herself away on Valium. She was the next best thing to a Mom that I'd ever had"

Rachel coughed and for the hint of a second she felt a pang of irrational jealousy that Blaine got to have her for a mother when she was left wondering what the hell to do all these times growing up when she just really could have used some motherly advice.

"By the time I was sixteen and they had milked my father's company for about all that it was worth - with my help, they figured that my bashful schoolboy thing was a great cover and sent me to various other companies, doing internships", Blaine went on, "I'd gather as much inside info as possible and feed it right to them. I never found out exactly what they did with it, I just knew that often enough the companies suffered from one or the other leak almost immediately. Some internships even ended sooner because they couldn't afford me any more, I'm guessing they needed the extra money to pay ransom to _Sapphir_"

"How long did that go on?", Rachel asked him, her face a lingering mask of shock.

"When I was eighteen I had somehow managed to become kind of a big deal, especially when Shelby took over the organization, she'd only been a sort of handler before and a con woman of course. They got her involved for that in the first place, back in the 80s when she was a struggling actress...She told me that one time. I was wondering how she got involved with them. Anyway, she became the new head of _Sapphir_ and moved us to Los Angeles. Since I was close to her I'd become a rising star in the higher ranks, much to the dismay of Vlad who never really liked me. Mostly because he has a thing for Shelby and she never payed him the amount of attention she payed me"

"Well, in that position, I got to choose my own target for the first time ", he continued, "It was this huge important bank and I was so cocky and smug, handling the whole Op on my own. And of course I was sloppy and it wasn't too long until the FBI got wind of me. But instead of arresting me, they opened my eyes to what _Sapphir_ really did. I'd never been told about the drug and human trafficking, I'd just thought I was some sort of modern day Robin Hood, taking from the rich and all. I was spiraling for a while, wondering what I'd helped do all these years..but then I signed up with the FBI and became a double agent"

He made a pause to see if she was still following and she scooped a little closer to him, an impulse to get more, translated into action. She hardly knew she was doing it and if Blaine noticed he didn't mind and kept on talking.

"By twenty-one, Vlad figured me out", he said, "He wanted to kill me, obviously but...Shelby, she, she let me off the hook. Or at least I think it was her. I found a note at my apartment tipping me off that my cover was blown and I made a run for it. Since then I've been with the FBI, based in New York and Vlad would've killed me seventy times until now but he never came for me. That's why I think it was Shelby, she simply forbid him to hunt me down...I guess she grew attached to me, she didn't want me dead"

"So she's not a bad person", Rachel said, almost spitefully.

"Not all the way, as I said", Blaine admitted, "But Rachel, she has a dark side too and she keeps making the wrong choices, stubbornly so. A lot like you in that aspect, the stubbornness I mean. She doesn't let go of things she wants and she doesn't care whose neck she has to break to get it. Figuratively and literally"

Silence fell between them then and stayed there for a while. Rachel leaned back against the headboard to digest what she'd just heard and after a while, Blaine got up and started getting dressed.

Rachel's head was still spinning when he sat down on her side to tie his shoe laces and put his hand on her crossed legs when he was done.

"We have to check out now", he said quietly, "We've already been stationary far too long, it's not safe"

Rachel nodded and mechanically going through the motions, peeling herself out of her dress, while Blaine was in the bathroom and put on a navy blue dress with a bow. Her make up was smeared and she wiped it off as good as she could before throwing on her coat, waiting for Blaine to help with their luggage.

Driving down in the elevator they still hadn't uttered another word. All the way from check out through the lobby she tried to analyze her feelings. She wasn't really all the way angry at him anymore and she believed him when he said he had no choice. A bitter taste lingered but then he'd tried to make good in sharing his story and she made a mental note to taking that into account, stepping out into the street when Blaine yelled behind her, pulling her down roughly at her shoulder.

"Down, down"

She didn't know what was happening but she panicked anyway, seeing him crouch beside her behind a huge decorative flower pot at a hotel window, his gun in hand.

"This way", he said curtly and took her by the hand, pulling her away to the right with him, as if something coming from the left had prompted him to.

They ran and although Rachel wasn't exactly sure from what, she got the urgency, not wasting a second thought of leaving her suitcase behind on the sidewalk. She had a feeling this could be live or death, whatever it was. She heard heavy footsteps behind them and people screaming, people falling from being shoved and she didn't dare to turn around, afraid even the slightest move to anywhere but forward would make her loose the little ground they had on them.

Then Blaine ripped her arm around and pulled her into an alley but halfway through he stopped dead and not a second later a big black SUV approached fast from the front.

Rachel instinctively turned around to run the other way but then she finally saw the six men, dressed in all blacks that were chasing them before, they walked with poise, their rifles in had, knowing just what Rachel knew that second. Blaine and her were trapped.

"Get behind me", Blaine huffed and shoved her behind his back, slowly nudging her towards the wall to her left until her body hit the cold bricks. Her heart was beating to her throat and she clung to his waist to save her life. Maybe literally.

She said a prayer in her head and thought hard of her Dads before pressing her face between Blaine's shoulder blades, closed her eyes, took a deep breath and just wished they'd make it fast.

"Look who we have here - The lost son", it came out scoffed, in a thick Russian accent somewhere in front of Blaine and somewhere to their side, a car door was opened.

"Vlad, how funny to run into you like this, it must've been years", Blaine said with little humor.

"You're gonna come with us now", Vlad said, ignoring him and then four arms grabbed her away from her protector and she screamed and kicked and tried to wiggle out of their grip.

But then she felt a blunt and stingy pain at the back of her head and for the second time in 10 hours, Rachel Berry blacked out.


	7. Chapter Six

_**Author's Note: **Thank you for your reviews, they are what keep me writing. And a giant thanks to Rach for beta'ing this chapter. _

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Six<strong>

The back of Rachel's head was throbbing violently which was the thing that eventually pounded her awake, metaphorically. Though when she opened her eyes, the sight she saw might as well have been a literal bag of bricks thrown at her.

"Rachel, you're awake", Shelby's voice was soft as she hovered over her and Rachel found herself lying on a couch in a windowless, dimly but warmly lit, wood-clad office, bookshelves lining the walls.

She hardly noticed her surroundings though, starring up at her mother, unable to breathe or move or comprehend.

She'd envisioned this moment so many times, had prepared speeches to give if she'd ever see her Mom again, like other girls prepared their Oscar speeches. Not that Rachel hadn't one of those prepared too. But that was beside the point.

The point was that none of the things she wanted to tell her mother seemed appropriate or fitting anymore. Things like: "I missed you so much, let me tell you about what I like these days, is heaven real?" seemed silly and uncalled for, replaced by sentiments more like: "Why did you abandon me, why did you have me believe you were dead, why did you never come back for me?" or more pressingly: "Why did you have me kidnapped from the street and where the hell is Blaine?"

Her brain was working on overtime, taking in her mothers features up close, trying to remember what was the same and what was different. Her face was a little longer than she remembered and she seemed smaller but maybe that was because Rachel had been the last time she saw her.

It had been a moment much like this one, with her leaning over her, tucking Rachel into her bed, kissing her forehead, singing her usual lullaby, despite the fact that Rachel had really been to old for these rituals at that point. Nothing had prepared her that this was gonna be the last time she'd see her. Now knowing that Shelby on her part must've been very well prepared to just up and leave, to just disappear the next morning, tinted this last memory Rachel had always tried to keep alive.

Still she couldn't help but picture her Mom like she saw her now, breathing and in the flash before her, in her life.

How they'd maybe be baking cookies together when she'd always just done it alone, or Shelby helping her through her break up with Jesse when her Dads had no idea what to do with all their daughters feelings or her just being there on a regular day after school, waiting with dinner ready asking her about her day like everybody else's Moms.

Was she supposed to tell her that? That she'd spent days and nights crying just wishing she had what was perfectly ordinary for her friends, a Mom, because for her it wasn't ordinary but the one thing she could never have again. Or so she thought.

But even if Rachel had any idea what she was to say, she wouldn't have been able to speak because her throat was dry and raspy and all that came out was a muffled gasp and then from moving, the stinging pain of where she'd been hit on the head returned, making her reach for it, gingerly putting her fingers on the spot.

"I'm so sorry they ambushed you like that", Shelby spoke quietly, as if she was trying to create intimacy but it did nothing but confuse Rachel more, "But it was the only way to get to you with Blaine as guard dog, he's always been persistent, that one"

"What did you do to him?", ended up being the first thing Rachel said to her mother after ten years.

"We detained him", Shelby answered, her gentle smile out of place in context, "For now"

"Don't hurt him", Rachel said and sat up urgently, still holding her head, "He was just trying to protect me"

"Let's not talk about Blaine now", Shelby replied, dodging her plea and rose to her knees from sitting beside the couch and took Rachel's hands in hers – she flinched at the touch, "Tell me about you"

Rachel wobbled her head, her mother's attempt at feigning normality messing with her. How could she act like nothing had happened? How could she pretend this wasn't totally fucked up?

She drew back from the strange woman that looked like her Mom and wiggled her hands free from her grip. Shelby noticed that and took a beat, pursed her lips and seemed to deliberate something before she got up and stepped a few paces back. Like changing her strategy.

"Forgive me", she said, "I'm sure this is a lot to take in for you, please, why don't you sit down and we'll talk, just talk, Rachel, no pressure"

With that she walked around her desk at the far end of the room, pointing to one of the chairs in front of it.

"Do you want something to drink?", she asked her politely and Rachel tried to get on her shaky feet, walking clumsily over to the stool, pushing it a little further away from the desk, further away from where her mother would be sitting.

"Water", she said and hesitantly looked up at Shelby who shot her a warm and approving nod, walking over to a cabinet and returning with a tumbler and two glass bottles for choosing.

"Still or Sparkling?", she asked and Rachel nodded to the still option, taking the bottle off her hands, neglecting the glass and gulping it all down at once just to have something to buy her a second of peace.

"So tell me, Rachel, how's school?", Shelby asked kindly.

"Good", she answered, painfully aware of the absurdity of this budding conversation, "I have straight A's"

"Great", her mother flashed her a toothy, proud grin and went on, "And do you still sing and perform?"

"Yes"

"And your Dads, are they okay?", Shelby probed on.

"They're fine", Rachel said but had about enough of pretending, "Did they know you weren't really dead?"

Her Mom seemed to sense the change of atmosphere in the room, picking up immediately at Rachel's straightening posture as she leaned forward and found a bit of her spirit again.

"Rachel, it was complicated back then, it still is", came the slightly dodging answer that didn't nearly satisfy her daughter.

"Why?", she said, "Why couldn't you just have left a note, told us not to look for you or whatever? So that we didn't have to bury you and I could've still gotten a card every other Christmas, just knowing that somewhere out there, you're still around? How could you leave me alone like that?"

"Honey, you have to understand that in my position, working for this...company, back then it got to a point where it was too dangerous to have family, it was too dangerous to have you and your Dads linked to me, you were my liability", Shelby said, careful to take the edge off her words, "I couldn't afford to be in your lives anymore, I couldn't leave any ties behind. Shelby Corcoran had to die that summer and only _Pyra_ could go on, there was no other way. But trust me, there's nothing I ever regretted having to do more"

Something about the way she sat there in her chair, eying her up and down, scanning Rachel's face for a reaction, a signal that she was pacified made everything seem insincere and suddenly Blaine's voice echoed in her head. _She's not the woman you know._

"Rachel", her mother said after a few endless moments that Rachel found herself at an utter loss of words and direction, she didn't know what to do or where to run, completely fatalistic to what would happen next, "I brought you here today not just to see how you were doing because, you see, I have been keeping tabs on you too. Still it was a surprise to learn the the FBI got hold of you and an even bigger one to learn that you, my little baby, have become the _Phantom_, can you believe we had no idea that was you? You are capable of extraordinary things, Rachel and I am so so proud of you"

She let that sink in for a moment, not helping Rachel's wariness.

"I would like to propose something to you", she said and took a dramatic pause to be sure of having her daughters full attention and then went on deliberately, still scanning Rachel's face like calculating, "You're eighteen now and as I said, you have a remarkable talent, a talent that could benefit my company tremendously and I miss you, Honey, I missed you so much. So what do you say, do you want to work for me? Work _with_ me and be a part of this?"

She looked at her hopefully, bringing out her arms, gesturing around the room to illustrate what could be Rachel's new future. Rachel felt like she was stuck in a bad dream.

"No", she muttered sheepishly and it sounded like a different person.

"Think again", Shelby said, still smiling but there was a strain on it, "Think of the opportunities you have here, think of the people that appreciate your talents. You could have anything you wanted, Rachel, anything. And you'd be with me"

"But it's wrong", her protest was meek.

"That's what they told you, didn't they?", Shelby huffed, the friendly smile only a ghost on her features anymore, "You're friends at the FBI"

"No", Rachel said, because truthfully, she didn't have _friends_ at the FBI, she only had Blaine and he spoke of experience.

"I see", Shelby said, "Then it was Blaine. Blaine who you trust, huh? Or you probably think he's cute, right? Because he is quite handsome, especially for an impressionable little girl. But tell me, has he been honest with you about why his agency wanted you on my case?"

Rachel looked down at her fingers, twisting the hem of her dress. Her mother was right after all, Blaine had lied to her and betrayed her trust. Right off the bat he had fed her nothing but lies.

"You can't trust him, Rachel, I made that mistake", her mother warned, "He will do anything to get an advantage, he's an opportunist of the worst kind. He walked his way up here and took and took and then he betrayed us all and tried selling us out. He's no good. Charming, yes, but don't be so foolish to rely on his words"

"No", Rachel shook her head, suddenly everything she ever held against Blaine erased by the blind need to defend him, "He's not like that, I know it. Mom, can't you just...come home with me? Leave with me and go back to your life in Ohio?"

It seemed silly and childish to her own ears and she knew upon uttering the words that it would never happen. A shred of regret and sympathy flashed across Shelby's face, tilting her head as if she wanted to say something but then the moment was gone and she instead went on as if Rachel's last sentence had never been spoken aloud.

"Rachel, Blaine lied to you", her mother insisted, raising her voice for the first time like she'd turned a switch and Rachel remembered the few incidents as a child when she'd been mad at her with full force – moments she had pushed off her memory in order to preserve an untainted, flawless image of her mother when she died.

But now she saw that dangerous flicker in her eyes and it scared her, appalled her and for once she was absolutely sure that this woman there and the one from her memory, the one she had thought to be her loving Mom weren't the same person. Not even close. She just had no way of knowing which one of the two had been an act.

"I will not lie to you", Shelby kept talking intendedly, talking herself into an animated tirade with what followed, "I will not sugar-coat or shadow what your job will be here, I'm going to be honest with you. That's more than Blaine can offer, more than his agency can. They're all liars, Rachel, all of them, they don't care about you and me, they only care about their own profit, ensuring a system to prevail that's rubbing it's people, poisoning their minds with their propaganda, filling their souls with fear and starving them on junk, you can't trust them, you can't want to live that way"

"I'm not gonna work for you", Rachel said then and knew it was the truth, she wouldn't join _Sapphir_ because it would be wrong, no matter how much her Mom tried talking her into it.

She wasn't half as loud but spoke with the same determination, she didn't care how scared she was, how legitimately terrified of what would happen to her now but she refused to sell herself to the devil – even if the devil was her own mother, "Not ever as long as I live"

Rachel held her mothers iron stare, both women's lips a thin line, mirroring each others certainty and it didn't seem like any of them would move an inch. But Shelby was still the one calling the shots.

"Fine", she said bitterly, "but this isn't the last word on that matter. I will give you some time...to see if you won't change your mind"

Rachel watched her, holding her breath as she pressed a button on the Intercom on her table and called for Vlad.

Not a second later the door flew open and revealed the husky, bald man who seemed more content than she'd seen him the two times they'd met, almost chipper.

"Ma'am", he said, awaiting orders.

"Would you escort my daughter...downstairs?", Shelby said and Vlad nodded, taking eased steps towards Rachel and she rose to her feet, anything so he wouldn't touch her. She could see his gun peaking out from under his jacket as he approached.

She threw one last look at her Mom, whose features were baring no clue of her emotions and then stoically walked ahead of Vlad, not sure if she wanted to mean "downstairs" a 2x2 cell in the basement or a trip to six feet under.

"Rachel", her mother's voice called one last time from behind, mentioning something that had completely slipped her mind until then, making her stop walking for a second, "Happy Birthday"

All the way down, that Vlad's broad frame threatened closely behind her, she wondered how she forgot that it was her birthday. She knew she'd been vaguely aware of the approaching date before going to New York but then in the rush of things, she'd completely forgot.

"It's my birthday", she whispered to herself astoundedly when Vlad ushered her into an elevator, ignoring what she had said.

The elevator let them out in the sub-basement as the sign read and Rachel got a short glimpse of the level-overview. The building was several stories high so she assumed they must've still been somewhere near the center of the city.

Vlad didn't let her linger and pushed her on, not violently, she gathered that he must have had orders not to hurt her but he wasn't exactly gentle either as he shoved her through a bare corridor and Rachel felt cold.

The corridor was lined with several doors, some of them with little computer screens at their side, like the ones you use to operate ATM machines, presumably to code protect entrance to the rooms. At the end of the passageway was a door with something that looked like a retina scanner but what caught Rachel's attention was the man standing by a door nearer to them. They'd passed a couple looking like him on their way down, no one taking much notice.

Like the others, he was dressed in black, with heavy boots and a machine gun hanging over his shoulder. He appeared to be standing guard for something and greeted Vlad with a curt nod as they came to a halt in front of him. Vlad held Rachel by the shoulder as the guard turned to punch a combination into the key pad and there was a little click of the mechanical door before it slid open like they did in science fiction movies.

Vlad gave her another push and tossed her into the room, the door closing shut behind her when she saw him.

"Blaine", she exclaimed in horror as he tried to rise to his feet. He nearly fell back to the floor but managed to prop himself up against the wall. His jacket was gone and his white dress shirt was stained with blood, like bits of the floor.

There was dried blood around his nose that looked like he'd tried to wipe it off and his bottom lip was bruised. His eyes were both swollen and his cheeks blotchy. A considerable cut ran down the left side of his face from his temple that was still bleeding a little.

"Oh my god, what did they do to you?", she was with him in an instant, supporting him, hearing him wince in pain when she tried to hold him. The rest of his body must've gotten a good beating too.

"Vlad", Blaine said explanatory, forcing a coughed up laugh, "I'm pretty sure he wasn't allowed to kill me right away but he sure wanted to warm up"

"Blaine, I'm so sorry", she muttered and tried to stop the bleeding from the cut, getting her rosy cardigan scarlet red.

"I'll be fine", he said and she could feel him leaning against her touch, wishing so badly that she could believe him, "And there's nothing to be apologize for, _I_ messed up Rachel, I couldn't protect you, I need to be sorry"

"No, no", she shook her head and then flung her body around his, still trying to support at least a bit of his weight, grabbing at him for dear life.

After a moment, she felt his arms close around her too and his head fell on her shoulder. He squeezed her and it would have hurt wouldn't it have been so reassuring.

And just like that, her hope returned and with that her actionism.

"How are we gonna get out of here?", she asked when they broke apart, still she kept a hand on Blaine's chest while one of his hands kept resting on her hip.

"I don't know", Blaine said but Rachel's eyes were already wandering around the empty, gray room and she nearly cried out triumphantly when her eye fell on an Intercom screen in their cell next to the door.

"What?", Blaine asked when she let him go, striding to her find.

"I know how we're gonna escape", she informed him and threw him a grin over her shoulder, revitalized by her steady forming plan of action, "Come on, I'm gonna need your help on this"

He joined her, slowly because he was walking with a limp.

"Blaine, can you help me dismantle this?", she pointed at the screen she was already fiddling with.

"Yeah but what are you trying to do?"

"This is our ticket out of here, I can reprogram this and open the door from inside, then we need to knock out our guarding friend at the door, hope that his eye is compatible with the retina scanner at the back door and escape through the garage"

"There's a garage?", Blaine asked incredulously.

"Yes, I saw it on the level plan when we rode down the elevator and the door at the far end read parking level B"

Blaine gasped beside her and then his hands grabbed her head, pulling her in for a wet, hard kiss on the cheek.

"You're a genius", he said and for once Rachel felt like she was the special agent with all the answers, not him.

She smiled but couldn't linger the sensation of her flashing skin, instead she fumbled around with the shell of the screen before Blaine managed to rip off the case to reveal the little wires and connections underneath.

Sure of what she was doing, she adjusted the wiring a little bit until the screen flared to life and she had full access to the key pad. From there it was just a matter of seconds.

"Blaine, can you attack him?", she asked to be sure to continue because if Blaine wasn't up to it there was no use in proceeding, "Can you take him down? He's got a riffle"

Blaine took a deep breath and stood erect, biting away obvious pain but then he turned to face her and nodded decidedly.

"Okay, then, ready?", she said, her fingers ready to tap away, "Three, Two, One -"

_Click_. And then the door swung open.

They had the element of surprise on their side and Blaine darted out too quickly for the guard to bring his gun around his shoulder and Blaine had already grabbed it from him, using it to knock him out and in the blink of an eye, he sunk down to the ground, out of consciousness.

Blaine groaned in pain, pushing himself up against the wall, his face contorting as he got on his two feet again. He held on to the riffle and then Rachel had to remind him that they needed to carry the unconscious guard to the back door to gain access to the parking garage.

She was already trying to pull him by the shoulders but he was heavy. Blaine helped out and together they managed to wipe him over the floor and Blaine lifted his torso up so that Rachel could hold his lids open while a green laser scanned his retina.

The guard was carelessly dropped to the ground again when the door waved open and let them through.

Just then a shrieking alarm went off that had them both jump with shock.

"Quickly, Rachel", Blaine shouted and limped to the nearest car in sight, a silver BMW sports car. He produced a tiny lock pick that seemed to have been embedded in his belt buckle and fumbled with the car door until a low click told them he had succeeded.

"You have to drive", he commanded and walked around the car, letting her climb in by herself.

Rachel could hear commotion and at somewhere a door was cranked open and there was shouting, so she buckled up her seat belt and pulled the car door shut while Blaine dipped into her lap, his hands at work between her feet, yanking out some of the casing to swiftly hot wire the car.

"Go, go, go", he yelled over the engine springing to life and Rachel didn't hesitate a moment, kick starting from the spot, her foot pressing down to the floor and the car shot out of the parking space.

She twisted the wheel around and looked for the way out. She was vaguely aware of shots fired around her and then Blaine lowered the window to return the fire with his stolen gun, buying her enough time to find the exit up and out and race the car to street level in what was probably record time, breaking through the barrier, shattered plastic flying through the air.

She had no time to feel relieved that they made it out into the open, almost crashing into upcoming traffic on a busy New York street and she had to make a 180° turn, only to find that two black SUVs were emerging from the garage behind them.

She thought on the go and punched reverse, driving the car backwards to the next crossing, causing maybe two or three minor crashes as other drivers had to hit their breaks to avoid collisions. She turned over again and then darted forward, hoping Blaine would have a better orientation where they were and where they could head to than she did.

"Wow", was all Blaine said and while that was flattering it didn't really help her blind advance into heavy traffic, "Where did you learn that?"

"I didn't, I improvised", she said, "Now, please tell me where I'm going"

"Away from them", Blaine said just when she saw the two SUVs catching up with them in her rear view mirror.

"Shit", they said in unison.

Even though Rachel was driving as fast as she could, she was loosing ground to the massive vehicles chasing them and she was gradually panicking more and more.

"Make a left here", Blaine called and she reacted intuitively, not all the way sure where she was going but it was sudden enough for one of the cars to disappear out of sight, missing their turn and even shelled by the car, she could here a loud crash. She just hoped nobody innocent had gotten hurt. Still she couldn't think about that now because one car was still closing in on them.

"Make a right, to the bridge", Blaine said, keeping on the look out and then rolled down the window once again, "Try to stay low"

She made herself as small as possible while still being able to see the road while Blaine craned his body half out of the window, shooting a salve of bullets at the car behind them.

Their answer was prompt, metallic clangs, nastily swooshing, resounded all through the car as their bullets hit and the rear window burst into a million little pieces, prompting Rachel to duck even further behind the wheel.

"Fuck, Blaine, do something!", her cry was bordering on a shriek as they drove onto the bridge.

He leaned out again and then all the noise was drowned out by a huge bang and the car jerked forward from a nearby blow.

"Woah", Rachel said but didn't dare to turn her head.

"I hit their tank", Blaine said stunned, "I didn't think that would even work.

"Fuck", Rachel repeated, allowing herself to feel a little bit relieved, but she wouldn't be able to relax until she had a safe place to go and hide, "Where to now?"

"Jersey", Blaine said and Rachel drove.

It was dawning around them when they hit the more suburban areas of New Jersey, and Rachel now turned around to watch behind her every two seconds, making Blaine correct her course on more than one occasion.

Finally at a parking lot in front of a mall, Blaine told her to stop and they ditched the car, tossing the plates into some bushes nearby and Blaine led her away by foot.

She still looked over her shoulder, feeling no bit safer than before, if not even less safe with the night creeping in on them.

"Where are we going?", she asked him when her feet started to get tired, even though he limped, Blaine was still faster than her as she barely found strength to put one foot in front of the other. It had been a long day.

"There's a safe house about another two blocks from here", he answered her and then took her hand, "Come on, we gotta get off the street"

The safe house looked no more or less secure than the others on it's block but she figured it's purpose was to look inconspicuousness and so she decided to believe it was her haven because frankly, she needed to. She was tired of running and she felt something swell inside of her that was threatening to take over of she lost that straw of hope for shelter.

Blaine found the key taped under the window sill beside the door and let them in, after a quick glance around, making sure that nobody else was out and saw them enter

The house wasn't toasty but warmer than outside. It didn't feel very homey with scarce furniture and no decoration but she took it in stride. It was past the time to be picky.

"And we're really safe here?", she asked Blaine who ushered her upstairs quickly.

He led her into the only room on the top floor, a bedroom with a double bed and a master bathroom, "For tonight, yes. Tomorrow I'll need to find a phone and get us out but for now we lay low and rest. There should be a set of sweat pants and a shirt in the Bathroom, and everything else to get cleaned up, are you hungry"

"No", Rachel said, and , "Thank you"

The bathroom was just as unadorned as the rest of the house but at least she found the fresh change of clothes and stripped of her bloody cardigan, tights, dress and bra in an automated choreography, slipping into the cold clothes that still didn't drench the sudden heat wave that took hold of her body.

She staggered forward to hold on to the sink, for the first time able to let go of the tension she'd held the entire day, for the first time realizing what had happened to her. And then she looked up and found her face starring at her in the mirror, she was pale and shaken and what had always worked wonders to console her almost made her flinch back now.

She saw her mother, there in her features, in the shape of her nose and eyes and she knew until the end of her days she would always see her there, feel that indescribable pain she felt because she wished she'd never known the truth at all. That she felt like it was better if her Mother had really died that day in August.

And then everything hit.

She buckled over and everything tumbled down on her, crushing her with pain and devastation, hurt and hopelessness and she wanted to let it out but she couldn't, she'd been holding everything back and now the only outlet were soundless, tearless, choked sobs that shook her body, dragging her down and she fell.

She hit the floor hard and curled up in a ball, trying to hug her legs to her body to keep them from shaking but she couldn't stop, her whole body shook. Everything was pain.

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><p><em>I know Rachel's birthday is in December and not late November but let's just ignore this for arguments sake, okay? :)<em>


	8. Chapter Seven

_**Author's Note: **This chapter is a lot shorter than the last..but I hope it satisfies you anyway. Leave your thoughts if you have any :)_

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><p><strong>Chapter Seven<strong>

Blaine had just taken a second to sit down on the bed, taking off his shoes and socks, throwing his bloody dress shirt over a lonely chair standing next to the bed, glad that at least his white undershirt was still presentable when he heard the dull thumb coming from the bathroom. And then Rachel's choked up sobs.

"Rachel", he said more to himself than calling out to her and got there as fast as his hurt leg allowed. He knew it wasn't broken but strained and bruised but when he saw her coiled up on the bathroom floor, trying somehow to hold herself still and failing miserably, his heart broke into a million pieces and he picked her up, no matter how it hurt his sore knee and ankle.

He propped her up against his chest and she didn't even seem to notice it. It ate him alive to see her suffer like that and for the zillionth time within the last 24 hours he cursed himself for letting it all happen to her, for not keeping her out of it. He'd been supposed to keep her safe, instead he'd broken her trust, got her kidnapped, almost shot or killed in a car crash.

Sure, she was tough and mature beyond her years but everyone had a breaking point and he could hardly blame her for reaching hers. It just killed him that it was partially if not all his fault.

He carried her to the bed, biting away the pain in his leg as he set her down gently. Rachel turned to her side, facing the room away from him, shaking like a leaf. She took deep and hurried breaths, working herself into a complete breakdown.

He didn't hesitate a second before climbing onto the bed, lying down opposite of her and bringing the lower arm around her torso while his free hand cupped her cheek. He was hurting everywhere from the beating Vlad gave him but it didn't compare to what seeing her like this did to him.

"Rachel, shh", he tried to hum but she just wouldn't calm down, she just kept shivering, grabbing the fabric of his shirt, clutching him tightly.

"She's every-everywhere", Rachel managed to mumble under her breath, "I don't..don't want to, ah, I don't want to become like her"

"You won't", he promised and drew lazy circles on her cheek with his thumb, "Shh, you won't become like her"

"But it's...it's all there, you said it yo-you-yourself, I'm stubborn like her, determined and – and, I can't Blaine, I can't"

"You're your own person, Rachel, listen to me", he repeated, scooting a little closer to her, trying just by pressing her against the stillness of his body to cease her shaking. It didn't work.

"You're perfect, okay? It's your choices that matter", he said intensely, "You saved both our lives today, they would have killed me if it hadn't been for you, you're good, you're good, Rachel"

She shook her head in protest while her lips quivered and he pulled her closer, putting a chaste, light kiss on her hairline.

She shuddered a little less.

He wondered if he had done that. Just to see if he was right, his kissed the same spot again.

And she shuddered a little less.

Instead she held on tighter to him, slipping her arm under his and grabbed his sore shoulder. He bit back a cry of agony as she pulled herself up, her eyes closed when she slowly came level with him.

He kissed her forehead, if only just to occupy his mouth. And to calm her down. She was still shivering but not as badly now, just one more kiss, he said to himself, one more kiss and he'd let her sleep.

This time he dipped his head down slightly, down to her cheek, just a little peck, he couldn't linger, couldn't think about her smooth skin under his lips, couldn't think about how close they were.

But before he could jerk his head away, she'd nudged his nose with hers. Absolutely enough to make him pause. Too long.

Slowly but inevitably he was taken over by a sort of gravitational pull that sucked him in, sucked him towards her and finally their lips met and whatever pain he'd felt form his bruises there before was gone and swept away at the touch.

Her fingers played with the hem of his shirt, then with some chest hairs she could reach and he wanted to break away, he really tried. He knew he had to, this was wrong, he was in charge of her, she was only eighteen, it was wrong, wrong, wrong.

However, when she nibbled at his lower lip, gently running her tongue where it was swollen, his mouth fell open for her, a sigh escaping him against his will. She really kissed him then, took in his lips, his tongue, drew back a little and then came back for more. It left him breathless.

He just gave her an inch more, still resolved to stop and soon but he wanted one kiss, one more proper kiss. It would be all that he got, all that he'd have from her.

And so he leaned in and lay it all in that one kiss, all his penned up emotions, all the stolen glances, all the moments he'd wanted to grab her and more than that, all of his feelings for her, how he admired her, looked up to her, cherished her and kept being amazed and surprised by her.

This time it was her that moaned and they moved lower on the bed together, she followed his every move, sinking and falling into him as much as he did with her. His hands held her tightly, not ready to let go yet.

But it got too much too fast, he felt her all over him. Blaine knew it was just a matter of time before he lost control and he'd never forgive himself once he did.

With all of his being protesting the move, he broke apart from her when she started intensifying the kiss yet, her body so close to his he felt like melting any second. She waited a moment before her eyes flew open, thinking he was just taking a breath but when he held her at bay at her hips, she nudged forward and he had to whisper, keeping his lips out of reach.

"No", he muttered, "I can't, we have to stop"

He looked her in the eye the first time since they'd started crossing the line and her eyebrows were wrinkled together, her face alone a silent plea.

"Please", she said, "please Blaine, I _need_ you"

He'd heard that before on some occasions between the sheets but this was different, he knew that Rachel didn't mean a purely physical need, if at all and that made everything so much harder.

"Please", she begged and his resolve wavered.

The tremble it caused him was enough for his hands to lose the firm grip on her and she used the lack of resistance to come for him again, attacking his neck, kissing and sucking in a way that had him close his eyes, seeing stars flutter behind his eyelids.

She kept pleading between kisses, each breathy 'please' followed by a touch of her lips and she worked her way up, causing his body to tingle from head to toe.

He pulled her closer again and gave the battle lost. He couldn't fight her, not like this, not over something he possibly wanted even more than her.

He slowly retrieved his arm from under her, using it to push himself onto his good elbow. Rachel didn't wait for a sign or a nudge to pull him on top of her, she just did. She scissored her legs around his and he groaned at the new sensations.

The one arm that wasn't hurt was used to keep himself over her, the one that he couldn't put much weight on ran up and down her tiny body, eliciting little gasps and moans that spurred him on. He was way over his head but with every touch of her fingertips, every kiss, he lost the last remaining grip he had on his self-control.

He just wanted her, he wanted her so bad.

He grabbed her waist, ran his hand up to her chest and felt her up through her shirt, her head fell back onto the pillow, little fingers running through his hair. He looked down at her, bringing his hand up to caress her cheek, wanting to see her eyes.

She was smiling and for a second they just stayed like that, taking each other in, faces flushed. But Rachel wasn't as patient and she drew him back in for another kiss and beyond. Using a little pressure into the right direction, he knew she wanted to change positions.

She rose above and straddled him, her palms firmly on his chest, letting them wander up and he winced as she dug her fingertips into his skin.

"Ouch, shoulder", he said and it seemed like she only just then noticed the yellow greenish bruise on him.

"I'm sorry, so sorry baby", she apologized and bent down, kissing the sore spot once, twice, three times before moving on to take off his shirt.

She gasped in shock when she revealed even more bruises and he was surprised too how bad it looked. After all this was the first time he'd gotten out of the shirt since the ball.

"You gotta be careful with me tonight", he muttered with a sly smile and she chuckled. For the first time in 24 hours. It lit up the entire room.

He would have liked to savor the moment a while longer but Rachel was not in the mood for waiting. She dipped down and only broke the kiss to reach to her back and pull the dark blue FBI T-shirt over her head, revealing a naked torso with everything in the perfect place and size. She was flawless. A poster of a girl. Utterly perfect to his eyes.

They moved quicker now that their clothes came off, Rachel depriving him of her body as she made her way down, following the trail of his hairs down to his pants, unbuckling his belt swiftly, no hint of tremor left in her movements. He would've patted his own shoulder for that achievement if it wouldn't have hurt...and if she wasn't doing solid work of distracting him from every coherent thought.

She unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, pulling them off of him, throwing them down to the floor.

He lay almost exposed to her, his black boxer brief the last thing he had on as she made her way back up. It was a mix of equal parts bittersweet pain and pleasure, their bodies causing friction and the fabric restraining him. She rolled her hips against lap a couple of times, mystifying him whether she was doing it for his or _her_ thrill. Any which way...it worked.

His hands shot into her hair and the times he didn't have to close his eyes at the overload of sensory input, he watched her closely. Her skin was shimmering, giving her a mesmerizing glow which made the little twitches and smiles crossing her face that more enchanting. Sometimes she caught him starring and blushed, casting her eyes down again, her color slowly returning bit by bit to her before ashen features.

"You're so beautiful", it escaped him and while her smile in return was blazing, the response of her body was _blasting_.

In the blink of an eye, she wiggled herself down on him and just like that removed the last piece of clothing that covered him, his erection exposed for her and she smirked as if she was proud that it was all for her. It only made him harder seeing how she admired him, watching him whither as she bent down and blew softly over his skin. The sheets they lay on became even more contorted as he grabbed a handful on each side, just to keep it together.

Tiny fingers started exploring him, running up from his thighs and higher, up to where everything was sensitive and yearning for release. She stroked him lightly at first, almost curiously observing what her touches did to him, making him growl lowly, urging her on.

He needed her, all over, all around him. He couldn't stop thinking about how she would feel, how tight and wet she'd be for him and her name tumbled from his lips, begging now, he just wanted to feel her.

She complied, closing her fingers around him, knowing just what she was doing and started to go up and down, slowly at first but then spurred on by his heavy breaths and sighs, started pumping, faster and faster and he was worried that he was going to come undone before he'd had a chance to claim her.

"Is it okay?", she asked then, slowing, "Am I hurting you?"

She looked at him worriedly and he gathered that he must've grimaced in a way that gave her the impression so he was very quick to pull her face up to his.

"No, no", he muttered and kissed her, hoping actions could convey how he felt better than words, "God no, it feels so good"

He kissed her again, "So good"

And then it was his hand that wandered down her bare back, disappearing under her shorts, running his palm over her exquisite, firm ass, giving in to the temptation to squeeze it, pushing her against his hips before creating some space to gain access to where he hoped she wanted to feel _him_.

She was even more ready than he'd imagined, bucking hungrily against his hand, moaning into his mouth before she couldn't keep kissing anymore, letting her head fall on his shoulder.

He hardly felt any pain with her lips trailing along his skin, not coordinated just licking and biting and moaning while he worked one at first, then two fingers in and out of her.

"Blaine", she gasped, "Now"

He wouldn't be told twice and let her get up to take off her shorts and he nearly forgot the most pressing precaution the way she finally stood in front of the bed, completely naked, biting her lip self-consciously.

"I want you", she said honestly and it wasn't like they did it in _these_ kinds of movies, it wasn't for the thrills of dirty talk, it was sincere, almost a confession and it probably took her a lot, standing exposed like that, owning up to her feelings. His chest flared up hot with affection and desire.

"There should be condoms in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom", he said, eager to move things along. He didn't want to wait anymore.

Rachel gave him a wide-eyed look, telling of how she was most likely very glad he had reminded her, the thought of protection, albeit necessary, had been very secondary to what they'd both been dealing with the last half hour.

She hurried and he heard her rummaging through the bath before returning with the desired object. Climbing back to him, she tore it open with her teeth and crawled over him, sliding it on him skillfully and fast. He couldn't help being a little impressed.

She shot him a questioning look if she could go on and he just nodded, speechless with his throat momentarily drying out. This was happening.

She took her time to get into position, giving him a couple of strokes until he was firmest in her palm and she seemed satisfied, straightening her upper body.

When she finally sank down on him it felt like an explosion, setting off where their body's meshed into one and he found that his hazy imagination of how it would feel hadn't done reality any justice.

It was mind-blowing just how she slid up and down on him, how slick and easy it was and he buckled his hips up hard to go deeper, feel more of her impossible tightness around him.

Her head fell into her neck as they entwined their fingers, both finding a quick and steady pace.

"Oh God", Rachel cried out, and then higher, "Oh"

They stayed in that position for a while but Blaine was assertive enough – despite his clouding senses – to see that she was getting tired, trying hard to keep moving, to keep him groaning the way he did but she was wearing herself out, so eager to please him.

"Come on", he whispered softly and held her by the hip, pulling out of her and navigating her to his side. He turned with her so he lay on his good shoulder, spooning her.

He let his fingers run over her body, pushing her torso a little away from him and her groin towards his, parting her legs and then slowly, slid into her again.

They moved in unison, slower now and he loved that she was even slimmer around him this way, prompting him to thrust harder, deeper, well on his way to bursting.

She brought her arm back over his body, touching and grabbing him frantically, "More, more"

He used his free hand to find her center, padding and rubbing light circles on her skin, his fingers quickly drenched.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God", she breathed, quicker and harder and he felt her walls starting to clench around him, making his own release more imminent.

"Fuck", she whispered, hoarse, high and choked and he felt her come, fingernails pinching into his ass but she kept moving, holding on to him.

A few more harsh thrusts and he followed her quickly, erupting into the condom, forehead falling against her shoulder blade as he tried to catch his breath. She smelled like sweat and vanilla and their scents had mixed and mingled putting him at ease, making him feel like he was finally home.

He couldn't remember a time when sex had so thoroughly shaken and still satisfied him. He was soaring a thousand feet high and had only Rachel to thank for it.

They lay entwined for a while longer before Blaine got too sensitive and reluctantly left her to clean himself off. Thoughtfully, he handed her a towel from the bathroom so she could do the same and smiled at her reddened cheeks and cloudy eyes. She looked positively drained and tired, perfect with a dopey smile plastered on her face. It was hard not to swell with pride when she looked at him like it was all because of him, like he'd done good to her. At least making up a bit of what he'd messed up for her the days and months before.

She was already under the blanket when he came back and switched off the light, joining her under the covers and wrapping her in his arms.

Rachel hummed contentedly and once again Blaine was amazed at how soft she was, like smooth silk under his fingertips.

Having her draped on him, clinging to him was the most comfortable he had ever been. That much he was absouluetly sure of; there was something natural to it, something just clicked into place and he was so effortlessly happy, so so happy just to be there, smell her hair and kiss her head goodnight.

He'd drifted into a gorgeous sleep soon after, not able to tell the difference if he was still awake or already dreaming – dreams and reality had become the same thing.

The next morning when he opened his eyes again, the blissful buzz had faded.

And he realized just what he had done.


	9. Chapter Eight

_**Author's Note: **So apparently this has made the two people I gave it to proofread very sad. So, um, sorry in advance, I guess? The next chapter will be up some time tomorrow I think, once this one gets at least 14 reviews. _

_Kisses to Ashley and Rach :)  
><em>

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><p><strong>Chapter Eight<strong>

Rachel woke up in an empty bed, drenched in sunlight and with a grin on her face. She couldn't believe that the worst day in her life – and worst birthday too for fair measure – had turned into the most magical night she had ever seen.

Everything that'd happened before still hovered there somewhere in the back of her mind, waiting to be dealt with but for now she could ignore all of it because she had Blaine.

She had Blaine and she had slept with him and it had been wonderful and tender and so much better than she'd imagined it could ever be. The fact that it happened alone was enough to make her practically soar out off the bed, slip into a set of training pants she found in the closet and the shirt she'd discarded some time in the night when it had become unnecessary.

She had wanted him so badly, even past his deceit, past the lies he told her because underneath it all she knew him, she knew that he was all that was good and true in the world. The one person she could trust even when she couldn't. She still felt his touch all over her, smiling at shreds of memories, touching her rippled lips and feeling blissfully sore from him.

She brushed her teeth, looking at herself in the mirror and didn't see her Mom there, just her very own flushed cheeks and proud eyes. She'd really done it. She'd dared to kiss him and move it from there and he'd responded the way he did, making her feel loved and wanted and beautiful and _woah_, she thought. What a night it had been.

For the first time in years she found herself singing just for the sake of it, not for _Glee_, not for a myspace video or any type of audience, just because she was happy.

By the time she'd finger-combed her hair and tied a little knot into the over sized shirt – to flash a little skin – she made her way downstairs where she'd heard Blaine rummage around and it smelled like pancakes and coffee, thinking this was the best way to be woken up ever.

Blaine hadn't heard her coming, standing at the kitchen center making more pancakes to add to the pile already sitting on the table. Rachel's mouth watered from a mix of things, first of course the delicious breakfast he was preparing because she hadn't eaten in about two days, let alone had any coffee and then there was also the way Blaine looked like from behind, dressed in his suit pants, socks and an FBI sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing his defined under arms as he cooked.

She tried to weigh off which temptation was harder to resist and after she made up her mind she walked over to Blaine on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, resting her cheek against his back, breathing him in.

"Good morning, baby", she cooed and planned on staying on him for a while but he had other plans. He took her by the wrists, gentle but decisively and removed them from his body, turning her to the table.

"Good morning", he smiled but it didn't reach his eyes somehow, "Why don't you sit and eat something, you must be starving?"

Rachel furrowed her brow because she couldn't shake the thought that something was off, still she shrugged it away, telling herself that he was just worried she'd collapse again or something and ate a pancake. Or ravished it more like. They were excellent and Blaine was right, she was indeed starving.

"These are so good", she said, still chewing and drank some coffee to swallow it all down, "You never told me you were such a good cook"

"I can do pancakes and pancakes only", he said, giving her another one of those sad smiles as he leaned against the counter.

"Is something wrong?", she asked upon trying to decide if she wanted another pancake or a toast next, "Oh, by the way, where did you get all this stuff?"

"I went to the store and made some calls on a secure line, everything's fine", he replied.

"Hm", she nodded, "And you aren't hungry at all?"

He merely shook his head, reminding her a lot of how he'd acted when they first met, all mum and mysterious.

"What's the matter with you Blaine?", she asked with a light chuckle and got up again, closing the distance between them and played with the hem of his shirt, ready to lean in for a kiss, "Didn't you sleep well last night? Because I did, like an angel"

"Rachel, please", Blaine winced and moved her hands away from him again, pushing past her, creating distance between them.

"What's going on, baby?", she asked incredulously.

"We can't do this", he said and couldn't look her in the eyes, "You can't play house now"

"I'm not playing house", she protested, "I'm trying to have breakfast and maybe kiss you goodmorning but you're being difficult"

"You can't kiss me goodmorning, or goodnight or anything", he said then and something shattered inside Rachel when their eyes met, hers wide with wonder, his stern and hard, "We can't do that...this, we can't do _this_"

"What?", asked Rachel, knowing full well what he meant but she couldn't believe it. It felt like someone had drawn a baseball bat over her head, relentless hands grabbing her from cloud number nine and jamming her all the way down to earth hard, like they did in cartoons, when there was a hole shaped like the characters body in the ground after they hit.

"I said we can't", Blaine repeated slowly, like he wanted to push her down even further, make her eat dirt, "we can't do this Rachel. I'm your handler, I'm responsible for you and I'm so sorry for what I did to you, for taking advantage of you this way. It was the biggest mistake I ever made"

"A mistake?", Rachel almost tripped over the word, flinching back from the implications. It was like a slap in the face. A mistake? How could it be a mistake? It had been the best night of her life. Had he not liked it? Had she been bad? She couldn't have been, he couldn't have just faked it, she was sure.

"Yes, a mistake and it will never happen again", Blaine said resolutely and turned away from her.

"No", Rachel said, shaking her head.

She wouldn't just accept it, he couldn't say that and expect her to just nod and go along with it, watch him tear apart the only good thing that had come out of the entire fucked up mess he of all people had dragged her into. He couldn't take that away from her.

"Rachel -", he started but whatever he had to say, she wasn't interested.

"No!", she shouted angrily, standing straighter, dead set on making herself clear, "You can't just go and declare this, it takes two to tango, remember? It isn't over until I say it is"

"But it's wrong, can't you see that?", Blaine was holding is palms face up, pleading and reasoning with her but he was missing the point completely, "I'm a federal agent, I'm seven years older than you and we're stuck there, we can't go back or forth from that, don't you see? There is no way"

"What does that have to do with anything?", she almost had to laugh at how little all of what he just said mattered to her. Didn't he see that it didn't mean a thing? What they had was bigger than some orders or an age difference.

"It matters because I'm in charge of your safety, I was assigned to you as a chaperon, which makes everything we did last night absolutely illegal", he said urgently, "I should've never have touched you, you're so young and I took advantage of you when you were vulnerable"

Rachel scoffed out a harsh laugh, "The hell you did, there was nothing to take advantage of. I wanted it, I wanted _you_"

"It can't be", he said, starring at the ground as if he hadn't even listened and turned to leave the room, "And that's my last word"

"Don't you dare leave", she snapped and darted over to him, grabbing him by the arm with force, "Don't you dare steal yourself away now, you're damn right, we're in a huge mess and you owe more than this, be a fucking man, Anderson"

"I _am_ being a man", he said, shaking his arm loose and giving her that look again, the one that said 'Trust me, I know better', the one that infuriated her like few things, " I'm doing the right thing – nipping this in the bud whatever it is, before I cause even more damage"

Rachel shook her head, stubbornly insistent, almost like a child that's denied its favorite candy, "You can't do that"

"I have to", he said sadly.

"No, you don't", she was losing patience with him, he hadn't understood anything, "you're not gonna take the easy way out and leave me behind like some trash you toss out. You're gonna deal with this just as much as I do"

"Rachel, please just try to understand -"

"No, _you_ try to understand", she'd finally had enough and stepped close to him, lowering her voice, speaking through gritted teeth, laying all her cards bare, saying what she thought he should've long known, "You're in my head, you've sneaked your way under my skin and I can't shake you, it's like you're parading through my brain, all day long and I feel your fingers running through my hair and I can still feel you move inside of me, you're _everywhere_. Despite all the reasons I could hate you, solid, righteous reasons, don't you think I know that? So no, you do not get to just leave me like that and you know what, I think you don't even want to either"

Blaine wavered, fumbling his hands up and down his outer thighs, "I..."

"You _want_ to touch me", she whispered, knowing she was right, "You _want_ to hold me again, to move with me again, I know it and I can see it in your eyes so you can might as well drop that pathetic act. You've done enough hiding and lying already, don't you think? You're not taking advantage of me and you don't have to save me. I can take care of myself and you know very well that what happened, happened because I wanted it to. You wouldn't have gotten to touch an inch of me if I _hadn't wanted you to_"

Blaine tried to get away from her but she had him cornered against the wall, still he fought, "That doesn't change who we are, _what_ we are, Rachel...we're no two people to get involved with each other..no matter if we _want_ to or not. There's no way. And you said it yourself, I lied to you, I betrayed your trust and then I slept with you, I'm bad for you"

"Bullshit, that's bullshit", Rachel huffed, "Yes, I'm still mad at you for lying about my mother but I understand you had no choice and I forgave you, so stop saying that"

"I'm sorry", Blaine said and he didn't mean the past, he meant the future, he was sorry that he was going to be dumping her. Rachel Berry wasn't having it.

"Push me away, then", she dared him, leaning in, her hands grabbing his shirt while her mouth traveled to each point of his neck she'd noticed him responding to the night before, "Come on, tell me to stop"

"Rachel", Blaine protested weakly but she met no physical resistance.

"Tell me to stop", she challenged and kept biting and licking his neck, feeling his body talk in a way that proved all his earlier words wrong to the core.

"God dammit", he cursed just as his hands clasped around her face and he pulled her up, kissing her deeply and passionately, sucking the air out of her lungs. For a second she felt like a computer being rebooted, wiped clean of all the trash, pulling a blank page, ready to write new programs on, install new and better versions of old software to finally work right again but then he pulled away and this time he proved that he was stronger than her, rendering her squirming completely useless and darted to the door.

"There's a car outside waiting to take you to the airport and home, you'll have a detail on you until we've dealt with _Sapphir_", he said and she couldn't move, for the first time legitimately scared that he might really mean it, that he might really not come back, "I'm sorry, Rachel"

And that was the last she saw and heard of him. He simply disappeared. When she ran after him after collecting herself, he was nowhere to be seen outside, just another serious looking man and woman whose names Rachel knew she would forget upon hearing them, stood by a black Mercedes, waiting for her.

He had left. Just like that. And she had nothing, no address, no proper goodbye, nothing but his stupid, mislead reasons and a heart in a million pieces falling freely through her body, destroying her fragile balance all over again.

All the way to the airport she was silently crying in the backseat. The female agent asked if she could help but Rachel just wordlessly took the tissues she was offered and retreated into herself.

She pulled herself together to call her Dads when they arrived at La Guardia Airport, explaining how she had to stay a day longer for the Music Camp presentation in New York because there had been a fire in the concert hall and they had to move locations. The agents had said there'd been an incident like that in New York over the weekend which would back the story up in case her Dads decided to google.

They asked if she was okay and Rachel demonstrated once again that she could keep up a good act, answering them in a chipper voice, that yes, she was great and she couldn't wait to see them. Gladly, she was used to lying to them, she thought bitterly and not without being angry with herself.

She cried in line for customs, in customs, in the waiting room, on the plane, all the way to Ohio.

Concerned passengers and personal were always reaching out to her but she just shook her head, wanting to be left alone.

"I just need a little space", she told a stewardess that had seen her quietly sobbing into her orange juice, "My Mom just died"

Which was true in a way. Her Mom had died for her, all over again. And Blaine was gone.

She just didn't understand how it worked. They say everything happens for a reason but she failed to see how any of this made sense. She was dragged out of her life – okay, dangling on very much illegal but still somewhat normal life – to fall in love with a wonderful man and then learn that the better part of her past was a lie and then on top of it all, lose that same wonderful man, she'd just found. She'd just had him and he'd slipped right out of her fingertips.

There was no bigger plan, at least none she could've hoped to ever make out, to her, all of it was fucked up. A

t Toledo airport, she tried to prepare herself for her Dads arrival and finding out that the number she'd been able to reach Blaine on before was dead, didn't help.

Leroy and Hiram found her, just when she jammed the speaker of a pay phone down hard, frustrated that she wouldn't even get to yell at Blaine properly. That she just had to accept that he had abandoned her. Just like her mother.

Bracing herself for the phoniness that was sure to follow, Rachel flew into their arms and gave them big hugs which alone were already a test by themselves.

It suddenly hit her how much she'd missed them, how happy she was to see them because there had been a time where she was not certain if she ever would again but their embraces didn't help to keep her own desperate grip on herself.

Neither did knowing that from now on, she had replaced the secret of her double hacker life – because she was done with that for good – with the secret of her mothers secret criminal life. And she could never tell them. It would hurt them too much, they wouldn't understand and they'd be in too much danger knowing the truth.

Even now, vaguely aware of the car trailing them from the airport all the way back to Lima and inconspicuously parking around the block, agents switching every couple of hours, keeping close watch of Rachel and her family, she was afraid for them, afraid that Shelby would come for her and not spare her Dads.

But nothing happened. And a week after New York she kind of started wishing it would. She stood beside herself, just wishing something would make Blaine come back, make him want to save her again. She wondered if she could just send him a message somehow.

_Help, I'm drowning without you._

The proud part of her wanted to not miss him, not think of him at all. She didn't need him, hadn't needed him before and she'd eventually be fine after. She would learn to be happy again, she would learn to laugh from her belly again, eventually managing to say "I'm fine" and really mean it.

She would also be able to fall in love again, she knew that.

The problem was that she didn't _want_ to. She didn't want any of those things without Blaine.

She didn't _want_ to fall in love with someone else.

Finn Hudson, her lanky, quarterback ex-boyfriend and _Glee_ club Co-Captain was the first to learn that.

He'd approached her at her locker one day, totally oblivious to her obvious depressed phase, not thinking anything of her reluctance to talk to really anybody but Tina and the fact that she'd sung songs of broken hearts and agony every time they'd let her in the choir room. In fact, she was still a little shaken from her mash up of "Nothing Compares" by Sinead O'Conner and "Hedonism" by Skunk Anansie when he walked up to her and tapped her locker.

He shot her one of his easy, kind of dense smiles and looked down at her. It was precisely 6 months after they had last broken up, having dated for two years more off than on in about these intervals, so she knew what was coming before he opened his mouth.

"So, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go have dinner at Breadsticks tonight...and talk?", he asked her, seeming utterly sure that she'd said yes.

"I'm sorry, Finn", she said and shook her head. He was confused.

"But, but I thought that song you sang in there was about me?", he said, "So, like, you don't want me back at all?"

Rachel grimaced, first unbelieving and then apologetic.

"No, Finn", she said and tried hard not to hurt him, "Look, you're great, really and you're sweet and talented and there is a girl out there who will love and cherish you and you'll settle down and have a wonderful life. But...that girl isn't me, it never was, I see that now. I'm sorry"

He seemed to have to chew on that for a while.

"Are you really sure the song wasn't about me?", he asked dumbfounded and Rachel had to try hard to keep her features even.

"Yes", she reassured and patted his arm before turning away, "See you around, Finn"

"Yeah", he said awkwardly behind her but Rachel didn't turn around, she didn't need to anymore.

She spent her days at home either wallowing in sadness for Blaine, sadness for her Mom, sadness for the general miserableness of her life and digging into trying to figure out what she would do after High School.

She'd never really thought about it before, thinking she'd just hack her way into money or a college or sell one of her programs and live off of that but now that she didn't feel like using the computer for anything other than Facebook or googling Blaine (no results that matched), these perspectives had faltered.

She had a vague idea of what she wanted to do but it would take a lot of effort and steps to get there and somehow without Blaine ever making an appearance in any of those possible dreams for her future, they seemed kind of plain. Perfectly fine and enough for her to go and try to make them real...but just...not as promising, not as gratifying to work toward.

She still would because that's who she was after all, yet she accepted that something would always be missing.

The night after she had told Finn off, she lay awake in bed, "Hedonism" stuck in her head and thought about how it fit her and Blaine..._I wonder what you're doing now, I wonder if you think of me at all...just because you feel good, doesn't make it right._

Yes, he'd let her go because he thought he had to, because he wanted to do the right thing but she couldn't help thinking that just because he was content with his decision, it didn't mean it had been the right thing to do.

* * *

><p>"It was the right thing to do, it was the right thing to do", Blaine Anderson said to himself, lying awake that same night, starring at the ceiling of his New York apartment.<p>

Rachel was safe, she was healthy, _Sapphir _hadn't made a move on her, too busy trying to wiggle out of the FBI's and CIA's grasp which would soon prove in vain.

Her safety was all that mattered, it was the only thing he could hope to do for her. And leaving her had been the right thing to do.

It had been right to end whatever was blooming between them, getting her away and out of the whole mess, away from him because he wasn't good for her and it was true, he couldn't be with her, not like that. It just wouldn't work, she was too young and his position forbade him.

Now if things had been a little different – but no, it was no use to think about it, it would only hurt and keep him awake longer. What was done was done and he needed to carry on, get her off his mind and out of his system.

It was just that an not inconsiderable part of him refused to let go and so it held bravely on, making him dream of her, hear her voice when he walked down the street, see her face in girls passing or on the billboards of the stores. She was everywhere.

Just like she'd said he was haunting her, she haunted him. She was under his skin, running through his veins, pounding in his head and he just couldn't forget the way she looked at him just before he left her in Jersey. Like he'd just pulled the rug off from under her feet, like he'd punched her in the groin.

He never wanted to cause her pain like that again but then he had to go and sleep with her, had to put his own desire and blind passion before her safe-keeping and her feelings.

It was all his fault and so it was only right that getting up in the morning seemed harder than it ever was, even as a teenager, that no colors shone as brightly anymore and all food tasted like cardboard.

It was only fair that he should suffer. That the right thing he did was his punishment at the same time; letting her go.

He only hoped that one day his feelings would fade, gray out a bit, stop being a stinging pain and settle for being a dull, numbing cloud following him around.

Because he knew he could never really shake the pain completely. He had lost her and that would never truly stop hurting.


	10. Chapter Nine

_**Author's Note: **This is actually the second to last chapter, so I hope you enjoy it :) Thanks to Rach and Ashley for beta'ing. _

_Oh and I got a message saying there were too many errors in this fic, so I apologize if I've thrown you off a couple of times but in my defense..I'm German and only started learning English at the age of ten so..some things are bound to be more difficult for me to put into words than they would be for native speakers._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Nine<strong>

Rachel Berry waited to feel fine again. Week after week after week. It never happened. It wasn't like her to be so hung up with things or people. Not since she'd been nine years old, not willing to accept that her mother was never gonna tuck her in again.

Now she knew her mother was still around and it seemed odd that no one of _Sapphir_ was showing themselves. On a couple occasions, Rachel asked the agents keeping watch of her what was going on but they said they couldn't tell her. So she waited. And hoped that maybe Blaine wanted to tell her what was going on. But of course he didn't.

She put on a brave face over the holidays for the sake of her Dads and rang in the New Year with only one wish she couldn't hope to see coming true at this point.

When school started again, Tina Cohen-Chang had lost patience with her best friend.

"Okay, enough moping now", she burst out over lunch in the cafeteria one day, "I've had enough of it, what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing, I'm fine", Rachel claimed tiredly.

"I've known you since Kindergarten, Rachel Barbra Berry, and you are everything _but_ fine", Tina insisted, "Now tell me what happened, does it have anything to do with the guy from music camp? Did something happen in New York?"

Rachel deliberated for a while and took into account that she'd been dealing with everything on her own and it was wearing her down, sure, she couldn't talk about Shelby but she could talk about Blaine, at least in some way.

The prospect of getting that little shred of pain and wondering out of her head – or at least a part of it onto different shoulders to carry was too good to let go.

"Yes", she said and Tina was all ears, straightening up in her seat.

"What happened?"

"We had a fight because..he kept something from me, something very important and I was so mad at him but, you know, he apologized and I could see that he had no choice but to lie to me and then we got in a little bit of trouble with the chaperons and had to hide from them for a little while. And one thing kinda let to the other"

"You slept with him?", Tina said in surprise, knowing that Rachel wasn't one to sleep around, having just been with Jesse and Finn before.

"It just happened but I wanted it too", she told her friend and for the umpteenth time, she replayed their night together in her head, eyes becoming glassy as she looked into the distance, "It was...so amazing, Tina, I've never felt anything like it my life"

"But now you're all miserable?", Tina said, implying the question how it got to that point.

"Well, the next morning he says that we can't be together because it's too complicated and I never saw him again", Rachel shrugged sadly, "And now he's nowhere to be found"

"Um...okay, so I don't want to be like that but, couldn't it be that he, you know, just wanted to get off and then, you know, butt out?", Tina said, careful not to be too explicit.

"No", Rachel said decidedly, "He's not like that, he's got his reasons and to him they make sense but I just think he's wrong. And...you know, I know I didn't imagine things, he wants me too but he thinks it isn't right"

"Hm", Tina hummed, in thought, "And that's it?"

"That's what?"

"Yeah, like, that's it, he thinks it's not right and you just sit here and accept it? That's not like you, you never took no for an answer, Rachel"

"It's not that easy", she argued, wondering if maybe it was a mistake to confide in Tina when she couldn't share all the details.

"Do you like him?", Tina asked her.

"Very much", Rachel replied truthfully.

"Do you want to be with him even though it's complicated"

"Yes", she said because it wasn't even in question, of course she wanted to be with Blaine.

"Well then go after him", Tina shrugged as if it was the most obvious solution in the world.

"He changed his phone number", Rachel said, deflating Tina's actionism but only slightly.

"Then go find his new one", her friend said after a beat, "Where's your fight? Huh? You've been walking around like a ghost since you're back, where's the spirit and the drive?"

"Well, he sent me away", Rachel muttered helplessly, "He disappeared and I don't want to always be the one to come begging, he left me and I don't want him to push me away again, that would hurt too much"

"So you're not gonna try at all?", Tina had said and Rachel just wobbled her head, truly and absolutely clueless.

The conversation with her best friend didn't let her go though, the following days she thought about it again and again until she finally made a decision. She had a vague idea of her future now and she wanted to at least try and make him a part of it. She didn't want to wake up one day and ask herself what could have been.

On a regular day in January, Rachel came home from school and did a little research, for the first time in weeks testing out her computer skills. She hadn't forgotten anything and quickly, she found the phone number she was looking for

He picked up at the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Hi Kevin, this is Rachel...Berry, the _Phantom_?", she said, hoping he hadn't forgotten her.

"Yes, Rachel!", he exclaimed happily, "I was just about to call you, we shut down _Sapphir_ last week, right now we're knees deep in processing evidence but they're thinking they can put them on trial this year"

"Oh", Rachel was honestly surprised and equal parts annoyed that she hadn't been a part of taking them down and worried that her mother had gotten hurt. Even if she wanted nothing more to do with her, she still didn't want her shot in the head or something.

"Yeah, Blaine's been working his ass off", Kevin said and Rachel's heart took a trip just by the mention of Blaine's name, "You'll be asked to give a testimonial too but not yet, just be prepared for that"

"Yeah, great", she said hurriedly, wanting to get to the point, "About Blaine, is he nearby by chance?"

"No, he took some time off to visit his brother in Boston", Kevin said and Rachel sucked in a deep breath. _Bam_, and she had a location.

"Can you give me the address?"

"Um, no, sorry, Rachel, that's private information I'm not allowed to share", he said apologetically.

"Kevin, please"

"There's nothing I can do", he swore and she got impatient.

"Okay, look we both know I can get the address anyway but we can do this the easy way and you just give it to me or the hard way and I will take it from you and give you a little present in return that will fry all your precious hardware beyond recognition"

The next weekend, Rachel was on a plane to Boston, clutching a scribbled address in her hand the whole flight long, trying to figure out what to say.

* * *

><p>As soon as <em>Sapphir<em> was busted, an operation that had taken up all his concentration and focus for a while, Blaine fell back into misery. Because it was truly over now. Shelby wouldn't be able to harm Rachel anymore – not sitting in FBI holding until further notice. Rachel was safe and with that all his links to her disappeared, soon they would pull her protective detail and he wouldn't have eyes and ears on her anymore.

The weeks before, when he allowed himself to spend some seconds thinking about Rachel, the reports of the agents guarding her had been his light of day. Just reading about how she spent her days, knowing she was alright spurred him on to close the case so that she could truly be free.

He just hadn't thought that doing so, he'd also free her from himself. He had no business with her anymore, no excuse to find out how she was doing, no way of knowing how she felt.

And while the rest of his agency celebrated the fall of _Sapphir_, patting his shoulders and talking about promotions, he felt numb and hollow and empty. He was lost in his apartment and the city and did the one thing he hoped would set his troubled mind a little at ease.

His brother's house in Boston was bright and spacious, his little nieces, Greta and Luise, 5 and 3 years old, greeted him with attempted tackle hugs upon his arrival and when he smiled at them, it was the first sincere smile that had crossed his features in weeks.

Sally, his brothers wife, hugged him and sensed that he wasn't in the best condition, ushering him into the kitchen to make him a tea.

They talked for a while about the kids and his brother's work and he helped prepare dinner until Cooper came home in the evening. He looked good, happy and prosper and swooped his wife in for a kiss while his daughters came running to him with pictures they'd drawn.

Blaine couldn't help but feel a jab of envy. Once again it seemed like his older brother had everything figured out, the perfect life, the woman he loved at his side, a job he loved and children that worshiped him.

Blaine on the other hand had no idea what he was doing, saw no perspective in his porition anymore, had lost the girl he'd cared about the most of all and couldn't find a way to move on.

That night, the two men sat on the porch of the suburban town house, drinking beer, Blaine's brother trying to get some explanation out of him, trying to get him to spill why he looked like a walking dead.

"I don't know if I want to keep doing what I'm doing at the FBI any more", Blaine said truthfully, thinking that now _Sapphir_ was gone the only reason for him to be on those kinds of cases had disappeared. He liked being an agent but he couldn't help thinking that the branch he was working caused more harm than good. He wanted to help people and not lie to them, deceive and trick them. Maybe he would really request a transfer.

"Is that all?", Cooper asked.

"No", Blaine admitted, "But I don't really want to talk about it"

"It's about a girl, isn't it?", the older man kept prying, "When you're shaken like this it's always been about a girl, just that you look worse than I've ever seen you before. No offense, bro"

"None taken", Blaine sighed, "I met someone. And she is wonderful but we can't be together, we were working a case together, she's a civilian and I was in charge of her...and she's just turned 19"

Cooper coughed beside him.

"19?", he repeated, "Dude"

"I know", Blaine said, "But you hardly notice it, she's a woman by all means but it's still...barely legal, you know?"

"Well, speaking as a lawyer now, it is, when she's above 18 she can date whoever she wants. Speaking as your brother...you know, there'll probably gonna be people talking about it but at the end of the day, if you're happy together that's all that matters"

"It can't be", Blaine insisted stubbornly, "We can't be together, plus she's from Ohio and I'm in New York. We don't have a future"

"You know, it actually sounds like you're trying to convince yourself more than me", his brother said, rising from the steps and ruffled his hair like back when they were kids before leaving him, "I think that's something you have to battle out with yourself, baby bro"

"Stop calling me that", Blaine grumped but his brother just laughed and then the back door fell shut.

On his sixth day of his trip, Blaine felt a little better, at least about his job and he almost wanted to turn his cell back on to share his decision with his bosses but then he resolved to wait until he was back and stick to his 'no phones on vacation'-policy. This also caused him to miss a call from Kevin that could have prepared him for what happened later that day.

He sat in Greta's room on a painfully tiny chair playing tea time when his sister in law called him from downstairs.

"Blaine there's someone at the door for you", she called and Blaine excused himself from tea, Greta not hesitating to reach for his arms and cling to them so he ended up carrying her down to the first floor by his under arm.

She made funny bubbly noises, grinning at her mother as they passed her and Blaine opened the door, almost dropping the child at what he saw.

"Rachel", he breathed out, looking down at her, dressed in a yellow winter coat, white hat and gloves.

"Come on, honey, let your uncle talk to his friend", Sally said and picked her daughter off of him, shooting him an encouraging look as she dragged her away.

"How have you found me?", Blaine asked her, the fact that she was really there, in the flesh, not really sunken in yet.

"Kevin", she shrugged explanatory, "I threatened him"

Blaine just stared at her. She looked amazing, her cheeks a little flushed from the cold, minimal make up and her hair shiny under the hat. He couldn't believe it. His memories of her hadn't done her justice, it had only been a month but faced with her, it felt like he had been blind for ages.

The colors returned around her, everything suddenly in focus again, almost blinding him. He could easily get lost in just this moment, just stay there forever and stare at her.

"Can we talk?", she asked him when she realized he wouldn't regain his speech any time soon, "I came all the way from Lima"

"Um, yeah, yeah, sure", he tripped over his own words and down to her, out of the house, one hand absent-mindedly grabbing one of his brothers coats from the rack, "You wanna walk a bit?"

Rachel nodded and fell into step with him as they left the house behind. Blaine's heart beat up to his throat and all the things he'd imagined saying to her flew into the brittle winter air. He'd wanted to tell her so much but he couldn't think of big enough words.

His sense of duty urged him to go through with his decision, to send her away again, keep her from him but he was too weak, the time without her had crippled his resolve beyond recognition and he didn't give a damn anymore, she was there and he just wanted to hold her.

It was one thing to keep telling himself he'd made the right choice when she wasn't there, but now, Rachel being just a reach of his hand away from him as he led her to the river to sit on a bench, he couldn't keep acting like being with her wasn't what he wanted.

He'd come to this bench a lot to think in the past few days, imagining her sitting beside him and now she did, as real as he was and when he would talk to her, she would actually answer. It was an odd concept. Like a dream come true.

"Did you get here okay?", he asked her finally, drawing some calm from watching the water ahead of them.

"It was okay", she said, keeping her eyes locked on him, "You don't look too good"

"I know", he said, "But you look fantastic"

"Thanks", he didn't need to see her to know that she was blushing, "I heard you took down _Sapphir_, Kevin said you almost did it on your own"

"No", he laughed mildly, "I was just really...invested"

"What did she say?", Rachel spoke quieter now, maybe afraid of what he'd think if she asked about her mother, "You know, Shelby, when you arrested her"

"Not much really", he answered truthfully, "But she asked about you, asked me to keep you safe, of all things"

Rachel breathed out long and evenly, "Do you think one day she will...realize that it wasn't right, what she did?"

"I don't know", he admitted and turned to face her for the first time since they'd sat down.

They looked at each other for a while, sharing some moments to digest that _Sapphir_ was over, that they were both free of it.

"I missed you", Rachel said, breaking the silence after a while, "And I've been thinking"

Blaine wanted to say something too, wanted to tell her how many nights he'd lay awake trying to recall how her skin felt under his, how her body felt on him, how many times he'd called out into the darkness just hoping she could hear him somehow. He couldn't make a sound.

"I have a preposition to make and I want to hear me out", Rachel said into his struggle, "Just promise you will listen until I'm done, okay?"

He nodded and she braced herself for what seemed to be a prepared speech.

"Your reasons for not being with me were clear and I've thought a lot about them. They made sense in a way, I give you that. You're in charge of me and you're forbidden to hook up with me, you're older than me and we're in different places in our lives and I've also experienced what the distance between us feels like and it's not pretty", she started and waited to see if he was following, which he was since she'd just given a recap of the reasons running through his head that very second, trying with little success to keep to his word.

"But now you're not my handler anymore, I'm not working for the FBI anymore, so what we do in our private lives is no longer any of their business", she said and he nodded, he had thought about this too, "And about the age difference..."

She paused and took his bare hand into her gloved one, squeezing it lightly, "I want you to be honest, Blaine, has it ever really mattered to you? Have you ever looked at me and saw a little girl instead of a woman, have you ever touched me and felt you were doing something bad? Not in context, just thinking about me. Has it ever really mattered how old I am?"

Blaine held her gaze and knew he had no reason or excuse to lie. And so he shook his head.

A small smile tucked at her lips but she held on to her trail of thought, "So we've established that no orders are holding us back and my age is a non-issue. Now what's left is our circumstances, I'm a student based in Ohio and you're a federal agent living in New York"

She took a beat, "But I'm a senior Blaine, I'll only be in school for another half year and I got mail two days ago. I'm a finalist for the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts , late admissions"

Blaine's brain kicked up a gear, calculating what this meant; she'd be in New York if she got in. Where he was. She would be in the same city in just half a year.

"Look, I want to be very clear about one thing", Rachel said, "I plan on getting into this school and I've decided that I will be a star one day and I'm doing it for me, because it's what _I_ want. I didn't choose a school in New York to be with you, just so we're clear, I don't want you to get all air headed, right? This was not about you. But...I figure if you're in New York and I'm in New York...why can't we just see each other and look how it goes. I'm not asking to like, move in together, or get married or something crazy like that. But I want us to at least try. Just give this thing a shot because I think we deserve it. Just a chance, Blaine, that's all I'm asking for"

They were sitting on the bench, facing each other, Rachel holding on to Blaine's hand and watched him take a deep breath.

When he opened his eyes again he saw her through a slight blur, he was gonna start crying if he didn't watch himself.

"I've been miserable without you", he confessed and squeezed her fingers, "Every day I thought if I just made it through the night it would hurt a little less when I woke up but it never did. I can't keep pretending, I don't want to and as you so eloquently put, I don't _need_ to anymore"

Rachel's eyes got bigger as a bright smile took hold of her features, "Is that a yes?"

"Yes!", Blaine exclaimed, loudly, like he'd won the lottery, which in a way, he had, "Yes, god, yes, I don't want to go another minute without you"

With that he darted up, taking her with him and scooped her into his arms, turning them around a couple of times before putting her up on the bench so she towered over him.

When he finally kissed her, she melted into his frame, nibbling at his lips and they let themselves fall deep into the sensation or being reunited.

He had her back and suddenly he saw that she'd been right all along.

None of his worries had ever mattered, not really. He could've just waited and kept the nature of their relationship a secret until _Sapphir_ was dealt with. He'd caused them a month-long turmoil of misery that had been completely unnecessary.

But she was wise and perfect and she forgave him yet another time, his amazing, strong and smart Rachel, the best person he'd ever known.

"Do you want to meet my family?", he asked when they eventually broke apart to catch their breaths.

"Absolutely", she grinned and he lifted her off the bench, took her hand and led her back to his brother's house.


	11. Epilogue

_**Author's Note: **So here we are, at the end of the road. I hope you enjoyed our little ride. I am planning on coming up for a plot for a sequel to this in the future but in between, I've been bitten by another plot bug – which I would love for you to check out here: "jackpotgirl (dot) tumblr (dot) com (slash) post (slash)17448825302 (slash) i-want-your-opinions" ...and tell me if you would be interested in reading that new AU, starting a new journey with me, Rachel and Blaine._

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue<strong>

_Two Years Later_

Rachel was snuggled up on the couch of their New York apartment, switching through the channels not really finding anything of interest. There was some teen RomCom on the Disney Channel and for the lack of a better choice, she stayed on it though she didn't pay much attention.

She thought about how odd it was that she was about to spend her second spring and summer living with Blaine, always a little taken aback with how fast time had passed.

After graduation, when she and Blaine had done the long distance thing with scattered visits and endless phone calls and skype-ing, she'd finally made her way to New York, getting into NYADA despite heavy competition. At first, she lived in a dorm room on campus but six months in she barely every saw her room for more than a day at a time because she was always at Blaine's and then they'd figured she could as well move in.

So it had been one and a half years now of living together and they were still going strong. She'd started their relationship going for a trial run, just trying to see if they worked outside of spy games and car chases. It turned out that they did – and that without having to keep secrets from one another they hardly found reasons to fight.

Now, she thought more and more frequently of the distant future with him, marriage, a house and kids. It made her smile.

She'd just envisioned a little curly haired girl pouncing around the floor when she heard a key turn in the lock and Blaine let himself in, she could hear his shoes being flipped off and jacket hung on the rack and then he was already standing in the living room.

"Did you find her?", Rachel asked, talking about Blaine's latest case at the Missing Persons division. He'd transferred there even before she came to New York.

She could tell by his hanging shoulders and thin mouth that they didn't and Rachel immediately opened her arms for him to join her on the couch. It was tough on him sometimes when he couldn't save everyone but all in all, his new line of work made him happy and gave him a sense of purpose, making a difference.

"Are you okay?", she asked as he snook into her arms and under the blanket, wrapping around her tightly.

"I will be", he said and she knew that he would need a few minutes time to wallow and digest but then, once he'd really arrived home and with her, he'd be fine. Their home was his haven, his safe place where the outside world didn't matter and couldn't interfere, like their very own bubble.

"How was school?", he asked while trying to figure out what on earth she was watching on TV.

"Good", Rachel answered, "We're almost done with the choreographies for the Spring Musical"

"It's gonna be amazing", he muttered, pulling her closer, "I can't wait to see you up there, I'll be in the first row -"

"-with a sign saying Christine is my girlfriend, I know", she cut him off and laughed.

"No, really, I'm so proud of you", he insisted, "Betcha there's gonna be some casting director there who will pick you right off the stage?"

She leaned against him, chest flaming hot with affection, "You're silly and I love you"

"I love you too", he cooed and nuzzled the side of her face with his nose.

"I made apple pie, do you want a slice?", she asked him then, remembering the cake waiting in the kitchen.

"Yes!", he said animatedly and nodded his head against her shoulder, "Pie! Pie! Pie!"

He was home now, she thought. This was typical for him and also one of the things she'd learned about him early on in the relationship; he could be really silly and almost childishly enthusiastic if he felt safe enough and wanted to. Not many people got to see that side of him, still she did and her heart sang whenever he had those little moments just in knowing that it meant he was content and happy.

Then, after kissing him welcome, gently but firm on the lips, she got off the couch to walk to the kitchen and get her man some pie.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Final Note:<strong> Lastly I would love to hear from you about this story, as a final evaluation of sorts, which were your favorite parts, how did you feel the story flowing? Did you think the suspense-arc was okay? _

_It would mean the world to me to hear from you because feedback is the only way from me to improve as a writer._

_Thank you for sticking with this story and me, I couldn't love you all more._


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